I recently bought a ibm ps/2. When i try to read a floppy disk it always gives me the same error: general failure reading drive a:. Formatting doesn't work either, when I tried formatting 1.44 floppy disk it says Parameters not compatible even though it is a 1.44 meg drive. Help would be much appreciated!
A known fault with the (Alps) disk drivers in the PS/1 and PS/2. It's either the capacitors or the stepper motor. I believe there was a way to adjust the motor so it would spin at the correct speed to fix this. If that doesn't help you should replace all the caps on it and even then it's not a 100% fix. I've come to the conclusion that Mitsubishi drives usually work and Alps almost never do, so best bet is to find a working Mitsu drive.
Thanks
Mine had a Sony drive. When I bought it, it arrived so filthy with years of dust and grime that I didn't even try to power it up. Went straight to recapping the PSU and fully disassembled the floppy drive, cleaned it, re-lubed it, and put it back together (as well as the rest of the computer). Knock on wood, it's working great now. I recently had a Teac 720k drive spring back to life after having its electrolytics replaced as well. So definitely try a full servicing of the drive and see what happens. You've got nothing to lose.