Floppy Drive 'losing connection'?

Hi,

We're using two Dell computers each with a Floppy disc A: drive and Windows XP.

Within the last month or two, both computers have developed the following problem when trying to access the floppy disc A: drive.

When we reboot the computer, we can access the A: drive just fine. After a few hours if we try to access the A: drive again, we will get the 'Please insert disc into Drive A:" error message popup.

No matter what we do while in that current session of Windows XP, we will not be able to access the drive.

After receiving that error, if we then reboot the computer, we will always be able to access the A: drive again.

Then, the same thing happens again after some time we will be unable to access the a: drive and will need to reboot.

Does anyone have any ideas on why this could be happening all of a sudden on two separate computers?

Thanks,
Jason