Floppy disk drive recognized by usb port and says it is installed on drive A but it asks that a disk be formatted before it can be used. When attempting to format a disk it cannot do it.

I'm not a Mac tech, but I wouldn't see why not. Floppy drives are kinda old school now. You may need a driver for the floppy. Check online and see what you can find. Download and install it.

Or you may have to plug the floppy in, then reboot, to get the Mac to recognize it, especially with a USB port. Some old Windozz machines were like that...maybe your Mac too????

Mac OS is very close to Linux/Unix systems, which have awful support for floppy drives. That's another possibility.

If your windows machine can't read the disk, makes me think the floppy drive is bad or you have corrupted files on the disk. Try a couple known good floppy disks on the Windoz box and see what happens. Or another removable floppy drive. They cost $5 to $10 now.

yes..this one is a little complicated...who's computer are you using? Home built or off the shelf?

Your floppy disk drive may be defective. Also, Some floppy drives are manufactured differently. Your best bet is to find another floppy drive to read your floppy disk. You can try to take it to the nearest computer store and ask them to read it for you. If they can read it at the computer store? The Sabrent drive you received if bad. If they cannot read it the floppy is bad. If the floppy is bad you can try to download free data recovery software to attempt to recover your data, files etc. Good luck

It reveals that previously this device was formatted by the highest operating system other than you are using. For example if one floppy formatted within windows 95 it will recognized by the other operating system but if the floppy formatted in 98 that would not recognized by the windows 95 and the operating system will ask for format as you already experienced.

U check your BIOS system.

Reverse the data ribbon direction in floppy side (data cables pink color side should be plugged opposite to power cables color side)

on the floppy disk there should be a little switch push it across
now put in right click options format

This often happens when the Floppy Disk drive head is faulty or out of azimuth. Usually when this happens you need to replace the froppy disk drive unit, which is not an expensive part.
If you do not want to take apart your PC to change the internal FDD, you can also buy an external USB floppy drive, in this case ensure you have a free USB port on your computer.
Here is USB external FDD:
External Floppy Disk Drive - Black
Here is internal one:
1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive

Its easy to use:

Step 1). Just on your lap.
After complete boot

Step2). Insert your floppy connector one end to your USB port of Lap.

Step 3). Double Click on My Computer Icon.
The my Computer will be open.
and if every thing is ok, a floppy disk drive icon [A: or B:] will be shown in the window.

Step 4). Insert your floppy disk into the Drive.
wait till the floppy disk drive light goes off.

Step 5). Double click on floppy disk drive icon [A: or B:].

and the content of the floppy will be open.

have any question... ask me

Thanks
Iqbal

Did it work before?

If yes, then it died.

If no, then replace it.