Floppy drive 'Acess Denied' all users including admin

I just tried accessing my 3.5" for the first time since doing a fresh install
some months ago. No matter the account I try (including the admin account) I
get the access denied error. I have tried the following.

A) disabled simple file sharing in order to take ownership of the drive, but
that option is not available on the floppy.
B) used the group policy console to disable the 'Prevent access to drives
from My Computer' option
C) altered the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\allocatefloppies to '0'
D) Changed local security setting 'Devices: Restrict floppy access to
locally logged-on user only' to disabled.

I have run out of options and still nothing has worked. The floppy still
shows access denied in all accounts. Please help, I'm sure I'm missing
something stupidly simple.