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-   -   Empty floppy drive grinds away at startup (http://www.win98banter.com/showthread.php?t=40805)

Stan Hilliard April 30th 07 12:56 AM

Empty floppy drive grinds away at startup
 
This started in the last few days. The empty floppy drive (A:) grinds
away for about 10 seconds at startup. What could have caused this and
how can I stop it?

Information will be appreciated.
Stan Hilliard
OS=Win98SE

Bill Blanton April 30th 07 02:48 AM

Empty floppy drive grinds away at startup
 
"Stan Hilliard" wrote in message ...
This started in the last few days. The empty floppy drive (A:) grinds
away for about 10 seconds at startup. What could have caused this and
how can I stop it?


There's a switch inside that tells the system that a disk is in the drive.
Perhaps it is stuck?

Try putting a floppy in and then ejecting it to possibly "unstick" the switch.

Clean the drive.

Replace the drive.

Or, by "startup" do you mean the Windows startup? If so, that's usually
a software matter with some process wanting to access the disk.





glee April 30th 07 03:07 AM

Empty floppy drive grinds away at startup
 
In addition to what Bill mentioned in his reply:

Clear your recent Documents list on the Start Menu.

Turn off the option in your anti-virus to check the floppy drive.

Delete all references to A:\ in the Registry, usually found under Most Recently Used
(MRU) entries:
Click StartRun, type scanregw and click OK.
When it asks if you want to back up the registry, click yes.
Click StartRun, type regedit and click OK.
Click the Edit menu Find, type in A:\ for what to look for, check the boxes for
Values and Data for where to look, and click Find. Right-click on the A:\ data
where found, and click Delete from the menu that appears.
Press F3 to continue searching, till done.
Close the Registry Editor.

Look in C:\Windows\Pif folder (or equivalent if you installed Windows to a folder of
a different name), and remove any shortcut whose target points to the A:\ or B:\
drive.
--
Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+
http://dts-l.org/
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm


"Stan Hilliard" wrote in message
...
This started in the last few days. The empty floppy drive (A:) grinds
away for about 10 seconds at startup. What could have caused this and
how can I stop it?

Information will be appreciated.
Stan Hilliard
OS=Win98SE



Stan Hilliard April 30th 07 04:44 AM

Empty floppy drive grinds away at startup
 
On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 21:48:53 -0400, "Bill Blanton"
wrote:

"Stan Hilliard" wrote in message ...
This started in the last few days. The empty floppy drive (A:) grinds
away for about 10 seconds at startup. What could have caused this and
how can I stop it?


There's a switch inside that tells the system that a disk is in the drive.
Perhaps it is stuck?

Try putting a floppy in and then ejecting it to possibly "unstick" the switch.

Clean the drive.

Replace the drive.

Or, by "startup" do you mean the Windows startup? If so, that's usually
a software matter with some process wanting to access the disk.


It starts after the desktop finishes loading and the lower right tray
finishes loading.
Stan Hilliard

Stan Hilliard April 30th 07 05:19 AM

Empty floppy drive grinds away at startup
 
On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 22:07:17 -0400, "glee"
wrote:

In addition to what Bill mentioned in his reply:

Clear your recent Documents list on the Start Menu.


Thanks, that stopped the floppy drive from grinding after Windows
startup.

Clearing the recent Documents list also apparently fixed another
problem that had started today. The last three times that I opened my
Agent news reader, the Sygate firewall would produce the message

"Agent for Windows has changed since the last time you used it. ..."

This happened the first time after startup of agent that I selected
[Get new headers in select group].

This could be premature since I have only made two reboots and three
loads of Agent since clearing recent documents, but I "feel" like it
is fixed.

Stan Hilliard

Turn off the option in your anti-virus to check the floppy drive.

Delete all references to A:\ in the Registry, usually found under Most Recently Used
(MRU) entries:
Click StartRun, type scanregw and click OK.
When it asks if you want to back up the registry, click yes.
Click StartRun, type regedit and click OK.
Click the Edit menu Find, type in A:\ for what to look for, check the boxes for
Values and Data for where to look, and click Find. Right-click on the A:\ data
where found, and click Delete from the menu that appears.
Press F3 to continue searching, till done.
Close the Registry Editor.

Look in C:\Windows\Pif folder (or equivalent if you installed Windows to a folder of
a different name), and remove any shortcut whose target points to the A:\ or B:\
drive.
--
Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+
http://dts-l.org/
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm


"Stan Hilliard" wrote in message
.. .
This started in the last few days. The empty floppy drive (A:) grinds
away for about 10 seconds at startup. What could have caused this and
how can I stop it?

Information will be appreciated.
Stan Hilliard
OS=Win98SE



Gary S. Terhune[_2_] April 30th 07 06:13 AM

Empty floppy drive grinds away at startup
 
Antivirus trying to scan A:\? Try using MSCONFIG to see if it's a startup
program. If you need instructions try reading my Clean Boot articles (site
in my sig), or ask for detailed instructions.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

"Stan Hilliard" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 21:48:53 -0400, "Bill Blanton"
wrote:

"Stan Hilliard" wrote in message
. ..
This started in the last few days. The empty floppy drive (A:) grinds
away for about 10 seconds at startup. What could have caused this and
how can I stop it?


There's a switch inside that tells the system that a disk is in the drive.
Perhaps it is stuck?

Try putting a floppy in and then ejecting it to possibly "unstick" the
switch.

Clean the drive.

Replace the drive.

Or, by "startup" do you mean the Windows startup? If so, that's usually
a software matter with some process wanting to access the disk.


It starts after the desktop finishes loading and the lower right tray
finishes loading.
Stan Hilliard




glee May 1st 07 12:18 AM

Empty floppy drive grinds away at startup
 
OK Stan, post back if the problem resurfaces....although it's likely that one of the
steps I posted will fix it if it happens again.
--
Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+
http://dts-l.org/
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm


"Stan Hilliard" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 22:07:17 -0400, "glee"
wrote:

In addition to what Bill mentioned in his reply:

Clear your recent Documents list on the Start Menu.


Thanks, that stopped the floppy drive from grinding after Windows
startup.

Clearing the recent Documents list also apparently fixed another
problem that had started today. The last three times that I opened my
Agent news reader, the Sygate firewall would produce the message

"Agent for Windows has changed since the last time you used it. ..."

This happened the first time after startup of agent that I selected
[Get new headers in select group].

This could be premature since I have only made two reboots and three
loads of Agent since clearing recent documents, but I "feel" like it
is fixed.

Stan Hilliard

Turn off the option in your anti-virus to check the floppy drive.

Delete all references to A:\ in the Registry, usually found under Most Recently
Used
(MRU) entries:
Click StartRun, type scanregw and click OK.
When it asks if you want to back up the registry, click yes.
Click StartRun, type regedit and click OK.
Click the Edit menu Find, type in A:\ for what to look for, check the boxes for
Values and Data for where to look, and click Find. Right-click on the A:\ data
where found, and click Delete from the menu that appears.
Press F3 to continue searching, till done.
Close the Registry Editor.

Look in C:\Windows\Pif folder (or equivalent if you installed Windows to a folder
of
a different name), and remove any shortcut whose target points to the A:\ or B:\
drive.
--
Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+
http://dts-l.org/
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm


"Stan Hilliard" wrote in message
. ..
This started in the last few days. The empty floppy drive (A:) grinds
away for about 10 seconds at startup. What could have caused this and
how can I stop it?

Information will be appreciated.
Stan Hilliard
OS=Win98SE




Lee May 6th 07 11:15 AM

Empty floppy drive grinds away at startup
 
On Apr 29, 5:56 pm, Stan Hilliard
wrote:
This started in the last few days. The empty floppy drive (A:) grinds
away for about 10 seconds at startup. What could have caused this and
how can I stop it?

Information will be appreciated.
Stan Hilliard
OS=Win98SE


Just to get another cause posted, I offer this knowing the solution
has been already found:

Q272242 - Floppy Drive Is Accessed When You Open My Computer
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=272242

This one affected me some months ago and I really had to search to
find the cause. "Open My Computer" is not what I normally do, I
instead go straight for Windows Explorer and then had to endure 15
seconds of thump - thump - thump. How my NoDriveTypeAutoRun value got
changed is still a mystery, but it had and was driving me nuts.


98 Guy May 6th 07 04:00 PM

Empty floppy drive grinds away at startup
 
Lee wrote:

Just to get another cause posted, I offer this knowing the
solution has been already found:

Q272242 - Floppy Drive Is Accessed When You Open My Computer
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=272242


According to that KB, the "correct" value is 95 00 00 00.

I had a look at mine, and it's value is b5 00 00 00.

I wonder if Norton Anti-virus is behind this change. Possibly to
force the floppy to be accessed which would trigger NAV to scan the
floppy?

What is the "NoStartBanner" setting for?

PCR May 6th 07 10:07 PM

Empty floppy drive grinds away at startup
 
98 Guy wrote:
| Lee wrote:
|
| Just to get another cause posted, I offer this knowing the
| solution has been already found:
|
| Q272242 - Floppy Drive Is Accessed When You Open My Computer
| http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=272242
|
| According to that KB, the "correct" value is 95 00 00 00.
|
| I had a look at mine, and it's value is b5 00 00 00.

Smart ones like cquirke & Blanton have said to adjust that setting to
prevent auto-run mischief...

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Policies\Exp
lorer

.......Quote cquirke..............
In registry, look for NoDriveTypeAutoRun
95 is default value, but dangerous; this autoruns HD too!
9D is better value, allows CD autorun, suppresses HD autorun
B5 disables CD autorun, enables HD autorun (bad)
BD disables CD autorun, disables HD autorun (better)
00 allows all devices to autorun (supremo bad)
FF allows no devices to autorun (supremo safe)
TwaekUI's Paranoi tab works through this setting
.......EOQ............................

Yours was BAD, 98 Guy! My current setting (9D) is a better value! Here
is Blanton's solution for that...

........Quote Blanton...............
I've written a registry file,
http://home.earthlink.net/~bblanton2/autorun9x.zip
that puts some common autorun configurations in explorer's Tools
Folder Options... I like to be able to change it "on the fly"..so to
speak..

Here's the screenshot.
http://home.earthlink.net/~bblanton2/autorunxp.gif

The reg file is heavily commented. Back up the reg (scanregw /backup)
and restore (scanreg /restore) to undo. Or just remove this key:
[HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\exp lorer\Advanced\Autoru
n]

Reg comments-

;---comments----
;After merging this file with the registry, you'll find a list of
autorun
;options have been added to explorer's folder options.

;The bitmasks and hex values for NoDriveTypeAutoRun
;00000001b 01h DRIVE_UNKNOWN (The drive type cannot be determined)
;00000010b 02h DRIVE_NO_ROOT_DIR (The root path is invalid)
;00000100b 04h DRIVE_REMOVABLE (includes floppies and zip drives)
;00001000b 08h DRIVE_FIXED (includes drives mapped to a HDD directory)
;00010000b 10h DRIVE_REMOTE (network)
;00100000b 20h DRIVE_CDROM
;01000000b 40h DRIVE_RAMDISK
;10000000b 80h Undefined (reserved for future drive types)
;(values are additive)

;The toggle to play music CDs assumes that the following key exists
;and the default command value is valid-
;HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AudioCD\shell\play\command
........EOQ...............

| I wonder if Norton Anti-virus is behind this change. Possibly to
| force the floppy to be accessed which would trigger NAV to scan the
| floppy?
|
| What is the "NoStartBanner" setting for?

Here is a TechNET article that mentions it...
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/arc....mspx?mfr=true
First Steps By David L. Farquhar

......Quote...........
Turn Off Click Here to Begin

The pre-Internet Explorer 4 Windows 95 also shoots an animated arrow
across the taskbar at bootup, pointing at the Start menu, and telling
you to click here to begin. Most of us already know to do this, and
those who don't usually figure it out pretty quickly. This is little
more than a distraction on newer PCs, but on slower machines, this
process can interfere with the launch of your first program if you
try to navigate the Start menu while the animation is still playing.
You can upgrade your CPU and video card, or you can just turn off the
useless fluff. To do that, open Regedit and navigate to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \Software \Microsoft \Windows \CurrentVersion
\Policies \Explorer. Look for a value titled NoStartBanner. If it's
not present, right-click a blank area and select New\Binary Value.
Type NoStartBanner and hit Enter. Double-click NoStartBanner, and
change its value to 01. This change requires a reboot to take effect.
.......EOQ.............

Careful about what that article says about setting a MAX & MIN for VM
(Virtual Memory)-- it will set a number of MVPs after you! And they
may well be right-- as Harper has seen a rare circumstance that will
cause the machine to self-destruct when set like that! Maybe Martel too!




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