can't open floppy disc

[Douglas Pollard]

Hi All,  I have a bunch of old word document 3 1/2 " Floppies I would 
like to save them to a dvd.  I am trying to use a USB external floppy 
drive to read them, but Ubuntu 10.04 can't read the floppies as far as I 
can tell.   If I insert the floppy in the drive the lite on the drive 
flashes a few times If I try to mount manually I get the following message.
DBus error org.gtk.Private.RemoteVolumeMonitor.Failed: An operation is 
already pending    Does this mean the drive is mounted??
     I opened open office word processor but can't find the floppy 
drive. I thought I might be able to import them into Open Office or even 
see them as icons.  The drive and floppies work in Xp. I thought I might 
open them in XP using open office and save them as an open office file 
does this make any sense?    Thanks for any help, Doug