Floppy drive activates with no diskette in place

[JBinNJ]

What I mean is this...

I'm running a PC with Windows 98. Periodically, the system will try to access the floppy drive as if there is a disktte in the drive - except there IS no diskette in the drive. The drive is accessed for 5-10 seconds, during which the system comes to a grinding halt.

Any ideas on what might be causing this?

Thanks!

 

[BadBigBen]

Hi there,

the only explaination I can think of is...

1.) you have a virus in the system... run a AntiVirus proggy like McAffee, AVG, or AntiVir and see if that helps...

if not...

2.) run SFC (system file checker) from the Start Menu Command Prompt... and have your Win98 CD ready to replace broken files...

Ben

 

[smah]

Also, check your start menu recent documents to make sure that there aren't any shortcuts pointing to documents on the floppy. This is the most likely culprit.

 

[bcastner]

I think smah nailed this one, but check that your anti-virus software is not just trying to do a scan of system files.

Software that records the "history" of your last file use and tries to build a table of entries is, however, as smah suggested, the most likely cause of this behavior. the Windows Office products are an annoying source of this behavior.

 

[bcastner]

I saw this in XP Annoyances while looking for something else, and I thought it a good checklist for you:

Clear the documents menu
Clear Unwanted Entries from the Start Menu's Run Command
Check for any viruses on your system (some users have reported the NEUVILLE virus)
Search your hard disk for all .PIF that point to programs on a floppy drive
Take out LocalLoadHigh=1 from your MSDOS.SYS file
Check HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/CLSID in the Registry for any references to OCX's or DLL's referenced on the floppy.

Double-click on the System icon in Control panel, choose the Device Manager tab, and delete the GENERIC FLOPPY DISK entry (found under Disk drives). When Windows restarts, it'll re-detect the drive and the problem should go away.

Other programs known to cause this problem:
Norton Navigator - Clear Norton Navigator's Run history (or disable the Run history all together), and download the bug fix from Symantec

http://www.symantec.com/

McAfee Antivirus '95 - try removing this program entirely, or just disabling the Access & Shutdown options in the Scan Disks On area in the Detection tab of the VShield Configuration Manager.
FirstAid '95 - try removing this program or disabling certain features.
Long Filenames for Windows 98 - View Software has a patch that supposedly fixes this problem.
HiJack for Windows 98 - turning off "Enable HiJack shell extensions" in the HiJack Control Panel.
Konica Picture Show - try removing this program entirely.
Norton Antivirus 2000 - turn off the options that scan the floppy drive during startup and shutdown

Hope it gives you some practical clues.

Best.
Bill

 

[Zeppo123]

I was having this problem in Windows XP. Whenever I opened a file window, everything stopped while the system checked my empty floppy drive.

It was Norton AntiVirus 2002. Apparently, whenever you act like you're going to run something, NAV's Auto-Protect feature checks _all_ drives by default. Here's how I fixed it:

(1) Insert any floppy disk in the drive.
(2) In NAV, open Options > Auto-Protect.
(3) In the "System" section, click Exclusions. A dialog box appears.
(4) Click Add, select the floppy drive's letter, then click OK.

Thanks for the great suggestion!

Cheers, Andy