How to Disable "Floppy Seek"?

Hi All:

I have built an ME machine without a floppy drive. This causes
the "Install Hardware Wizard" to crash every time it searches for Drive
A. This happens whether or not the controller is disabled in BIOS. Is
there a patch (registry hack?) that will also remove Drive A from Windows?

Omar Firestone

Begin by disabling the floppy drive in the BIOS setup program.

--
Jack E. Martinelli 2002-05 MS MVP for Shell/User / DTS
Help us help you: http://www.dts-L.org/goodpost.htm

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/secu...t/default.aspx
Your cooperation is very appreciated.
------
"Omar Firestone" wrote in message
...
Hi All:

I have built an ME machine without a floppy drive. This causes
the "Install Hardware Wizard" to crash every time it searches for Drive
A. This happens whether or not the controller is disabled in BIOS. Is
there a patch (registry hack?) that will also remove Drive A from
Windows?

Omar Firestone

"Jack E Martinelli" wrote in message
...
Begin by disabling the floppy drive in the BIOS setup program.

Note Omar: There's a difference in almost all BIOS between disabling the floppy
controller and disabling the floppy itself. This is to support the idea that
you might have a floppy controller installed in an ISA/PCI/whatever slot with
your floppy attached to that. You have to disable both the controller and the
floppy to really get rid of it. I had a similar problem to what you're having
on one of my kids machines when I removed the bad floppy drive and had no spare
to put back in immediately.

- Bill

--
Jack E. Martinelli 2002-05 MS MVP for Shell/User / DTS
Help us help you: http://www.dts-L.org/goodpost.htm

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/secu...t/default.aspx
Your cooperation is very appreciated.
------
"Omar Firestone" wrote in message
...
Hi All:

I have built an ME machine without a floppy drive. This causes
the "Install Hardware Wizard" to crash every time it searches for Drive
A. This happens whether or not the controller is disabled in BIOS. Is
there a patch (registry hack?) that will also remove Drive A from
Windows?

Thank you Jack and Bill. I have actually tried all four combinations of
Controller/Drive bios configuration and Windows continues to "see" the
phantom drive. Just as an amputee might fall attempting to stand on a
non-existent limb, the /Install Hardware Wizard/ hangs every time,
forcing a hardware reboot. Perhaps the registry key controlling this
can be modified, either manually or by a patch/applet?

Omar
©¿©¬

Bill Leary wrote:

"Jack E Martinelli" wrote in message
...


Begin by disabling the floppy drive in the BIOS setup program.



Note Omar: There's a difference in almost all BIOS between disabling the floppy
controller and disabling the floppy itself. This is to support the idea that
you might have a floppy controller installed in an ISA/PCI/whatever slot with
your floppy attached to that. You have to disable both the controller and the
floppy to really get rid of it. I had a similar problem to what you're having
on one of my kids machines when I removed the bad floppy drive and had no spare
to put back in immediately.

- Bill



--
Jack E. Martinelli 2002-05 MS MVP for Shell/User / DTS
Help us help you: http://www.dts-L.org/goodpost.htm

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/secu...t/default.aspx
Your cooperation is very appreciated.
------
"Omar Firestone" wrote in message
...


Hi All:

I have built an ME machine without a floppy drive. This causes
the "Install Hardware Wizard" to crash every time it searches for Drive
A. This happens whether or not the controller is disabled in BIOS. Is
there a patch (registry hack?) that will also remove Drive A from


Windows?

Curiously enough, Floppy A appears in Explorer (which will also hang the
machine by clicking on it) a but not in the *Device Manager* tab of
System Properties. I poked around in the Registry and found this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Config\0001\Enum\ACPI\*PNP0700\ 0\clOSFlop

with a value set to "01". Hmmm, curiouser and curiouser...

Omar
©¿©¬

Omar Firestone wrote:

Thank you Jack and Bill. I have actually tried all four combinations
of Controller/Drive bios configuration and Windows continues to "see"
the phantom drive. Just as an amputee might fall attempting to stand
on a non-existent limb, the /Install Hardware Wizard/ hangs every
time, forcing a hardware reboot. Perhaps the registry key controlling
this can be modified, either manually or by a patch/applet?

Omar
©¿©¬

Bill Leary wrote:

"Jack E Martinelli" wrote in message
...


Begin by disabling the floppy drive in the BIOS setup program.



Note Omar: There's a difference in almost all BIOS between disabling
the floppy
controller and disabling the floppy itself. This is to support the
idea that
you might have a floppy controller installed in an ISA/PCI/whatever
slot with
your floppy attached to that. You have to disable both the
controller and the
floppy to really get rid of it. I had a similar problem to what
you're having
on one of my kids machines when I removed the bad floppy drive and
had no spare
to put back in immediately.

- Bill



--
Jack E. Martinelli 2002-05 MS MVP for Shell/User / DTS
Help us help you: http://www.dts-L.org/goodpost.htm

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/secu...t/default.aspx
Your cooperation is very appreciated.
------
"Omar Firestone" wrote in message
...


Hi All:

I have built an ME machine without a floppy drive. This causes
the "Install Hardware Wizard" to crash every time it searches for
Drive
A. This happens whether or not the controller is disabled in
BIOS. Is
there a patch (registry hack?) that will also remove Drive A from


Windows?

"Omar Firestone" wrote in message
...
Thank you Jack and Bill. I have actually tried all four combinations of
Controller/Drive bios configuration and Windows continues to "see" the
phantom drive.

That's just a bit amazing.

Did you try booting in Safe Mode and removing the drive there?

Perhaps the registry key controlling this
can be modified, either manually or by a patch/applet?

Perhaps, but that's outside my experience. The most I ever had to do was remove
the thing in Windows, then turn it off in BIOS.

I'll be interested to see how this gets resolved.

Hmm. I just thought of something. Do you have an IDE Iomega ZIP drive? These
things can configure themselves such that with some BIOS they'll appear as huge
A: floppies. I've had a couple do that, though on the machines this happened on
they actually worked. Not the failure you're seeing.

- Bill

Bill:

Removing the drive in "Safe Mode" did the trick. In Explorer it
still appears (in the right pane only!) as a "Removable Disk". I have
also heard tales of a jumpered IDC connector plugged into the MB
controller header that emulates a diskette drive. An old DOS trick, I'm
sure. Thanx again

©¿©¬

Bill Leary wrote:

"Omar Firestone" wrote in message
...


Thank you Jack and Bill. I have actually tried all four combinations of
Controller/Drive bios configuration and Windows continues to "see" the
phantom drive.



That's just a bit amazing.

Did you try booting in Safe Mode and removing the drive there?



Perhaps the registry key controlling this
can be modified, either manually or by a patch/applet?



Perhaps, but that's outside my experience. The most I ever had to do was remove
the thing in Windows, then turn it off in BIOS.

I'll be interested to see how this gets resolved.

Hmm. I just thought of something. Do you have an IDE Iomega ZIP drive? These
things can configure themselves such that with some BIOS they'll appear as huge
A: floppies. I've had a couple do that, though on the machines this happened on
they actually worked. Not the failure you're seeing.

- Bill

"Omar Firestone" wrote in message
...
Removing the drive in "Safe Mode" did the trick. In Explorer it
still appears (in the right pane only!) as a "Removable Disk".

I'm surprised it still appears even there.

But I suppose sometimes a less-than-perfect solution you can live with is better
than a perfect one you can't reach.

- Bill