I've just inserted a disk into my landlady's PC and had a 'bit' ping off it.

No, I don't know how it happened either. The disk clicked into the drive, then broke. A bit of plastic shot out and hit the piano. Now the floppy drive appears to have stopped working. I don't understand it. Every time I put a disk into the machine, it just makes clicking noises and does, essentially, nothing at all. Sometimes it reads the drive, sometimes it doesn't and even when it does, you can't do anything. Why? It's decided the disk is write-protected when it isn't. I've tried three other discs (obvioualy not the broken one) and every time I get the same response - either 'this disk is write-protected' or, more usually, sweet FA.

I have a horrible feeling that the write-protection tab is stuck inside the drive. Not that knowing this (or suspecting it at least) does me any good at all when there's absolutely no way to get the damned thing out. If it's in there in the first place.

I am extremely worried. I don't quite know how to break this to my landlady. Certainly not when the grad student who lives in the attic has to use this PC - and the floppy drive - with extreme frequency. I'm worried because I don't kinow what to do to fix this, and more so because I haven't actually done anything that might be expected to break the machine in any way, shape or form. I just put a disk into the drive and the disk broke. Common sense says this isn't something you expect to happen. I've been using PCs for years and not once has a disk broken in the floppy drive simply because I put it in there. I mean, all I did is exactly what you're supposed to do with floppy drives - put floppy discs in them.

What in Hell am I supposed to do now?