Can the floppy A be locked in such a way...?

Greetings,

I am curious to know what/how my office personal manager use to lock the A drive on everyone computer. If one try to access the drive it displays a message "The drive A is not formatted, do you want to format it...". Is it a software or hardware level? I think he/she may install some soft into everyone computer but I am unable to see the program in my Add/Remove software applet. Is there a way to bypass this? Any comment and help is greatly appreciated.

We use Win98, 98SE and Novel netware for our server.

Note:

I try both solution as described below to no avail.

1st the bios: After disable floppy in the Bios, WinMe hangs when I try clicking on the 31/2 floppy A in Explorer. Under Win2K, the 31/2 icon is simply not there.

2nd Disable under Device manager - Floppy disk controller : The icon 31/2 floppy disappears under explorer.

At work, the icon is there but it keeps displaying "The drive A is not formatted, do you want to format it..." when you insert a floppy or click on the icon. There must be something else. Is it possible to tweak the registry in such a way that the drive will be inoperable?