I'm not that strong on the fine points of Linux but it would appear that
your system is just not seeing the floppy. I taught computer hardware for
years and here is what I would suggest:

Look at the light on the drive. It should be on when you are trying to
access it. If not the drive may be toast!

If you have another operating system on that machine go into it and see if
it sees the floppy.

Go into the ROM BIOS and see if the floppy shows up there and is enabled as
the size it really is.

Open the case and check the cables to make sure they are tightly connected
to the floppy drive.

Most floppy drives are found on older computers these days and they don't
last forever, even if they are seldom used. As a last resort try swapping it
for a known good one from another machine. If that solves the problem then
either buy a new floppy (probably less than $20) or just leave it there to
fill the hole and resolve not to use it. A CD is cheap enough that you can
burn anything you need onto one and use it instead where necessary.