Disappearing Floppy under newly upgraded XP-PRO

I just upgraded to XP-PRO and now my floppy not be
available.
On a restart the system will look for the floppy in an
attempt to boot ( Iput a blank into it for this test).
I checked the bios and it is fine, the disk drive is
there.
When the system comes up from it's normal hard disk boot,
I then check if the drive is there by using Windows
Explorer. It is not there.
I also tried the Start / Run / Browse sequence and it's
not there either.

If I uninstall / reinstall it's ok until the next
restart / reboot.

Here are some messages:

Device manager gives me a code 39. "Windows can't find
the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be
corrupt or missing.

The driver date is 7/1/2001 and it's version is 5.1.2600.0

When I look at details;
Driver files = c:\windows\system32
\drivers\flpydisk.sys
Version = 5.1.2600.1106(XPSP 1.020828-1920

I believe I mentioned that I had just upgraded from ME to
XP-PRO.

All indications are as I mentioned before that there is a
driver problem - where can I get a new / uncorrupted /
correct version. Hardware seems to be solid.

Others have suggested a registry edit solution but (
being an old - not bold programmer) I am lothe to tackle.
I have been burned before in even thinking about the
registry.

Thanks, Ed

Thanks