What's accessing my A: drive?

When the system boots, and later at random intervals, _something_ knocks
my A: drive a couple times. Certainly, it's nothing that I'm doing (I've
made no request to access it).

I've heard of programs that will tell you exactly WHAT is accessing a
drive. Can someone please tell me what one such is?

FWIW, I _have_ run a virus scan and it came out OK.

"MalcolmO" wrote in message
...
When the system boots, and later at random intervals, _something_ knocks
my A: drive a couple times. Certainly, it's nothing that I'm doing (I've
made no request to access it).

I've heard of programs that will tell you exactly WHAT is accessing a
drive. Can someone please tell me what one such is?

FWIW, I _have_ run a virus scan and it came out OK.



do a search for *.lnk

if there is any app that ran from the A: drive...
you can delete that link

MalcolmO wrote:
When the system boots, and later at random intervals, _something_
knocks my A: drive a couple times. Certainly, it's nothing that I'm
doing (I've made no request to access it).

I've heard of programs that will tell you exactly WHAT is accessing
a drive. Can someone please tell me what one such is?

A: is usually the first boot device (so you can boot from a floppy)
and it is therefore normal for it to be accessed at start up.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

Philo is probably spot on, but my own WAG is that maybe your AV is polling
the drive to see if anything is in there? Or some other scheduled scanner?

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS MVP -- Shell/User
http://grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm
http://grystmill.com/articles/security.htm

"MalcolmO" wrote in message
...
When the system boots, and later at random intervals, _something_ knocks
my A: drive a couple times. Certainly, it's nothing that I'm doing (I've
made no request to access it).

I've heard of programs that will tell you exactly WHAT is accessing a
drive. Can someone please tell me what one such is?

FWIW, I _have_ run a virus scan and it came out OK.

MalcolmO wrote:
| When the system boots, and later at random intervals, _something_
| knocks my A: drive a couple times. Certainly, it's nothing that I'm
| doing (I've made no request to access it).
|
| I've heard of programs that will tell you exactly WHAT is accessing a
| drive. Can someone please tell me what one such is?
|
| FWIW, I _have_ run a virus scan and it came out OK.

(1) If your virus checker is set to scan the floppy, turn that function
off.

(2) Is "A:\" mentioned at "START, Programs, MS-DOS Prompt, SET"?

(3)
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=216752
Floppy Disk Drive Is Active When Opening or Saving Files
Do the same for "*.pif", ESPECIALLY for any .pif in "C:\Windows\PIF".

C:\Windows\PIF\ is used to hold .pif's that Windows creates when they
cannot be put anywhere else. A .pif (shortcut to a DOS command) is
created when a DOS command is clicked to execute. Normally, the .pif
will be put into the folder of the command that is clicked. I suppose
one was clicked on the A:\drive, & Windows chose to put the .pif into
C:\Windows\PIF\-- not wanting or unable to write to A: for some reason.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=272242
Floppy Drive Is Accessed When You Open My Computer
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=185619
Floppy Accessed at Startup

(4) Control Panel, System, Performance tab, File System button, Floppy
Disk tab. Uncheck "Search for new floppy disk drives each time your
computer starts". That seems safe enough; there's a huge blurb there
about it; R-Clk that item & select "What's this?".

(5)....Start of Quote.......
Here is the drill I go through whenever I encounter this type of
problem. System is constantly checking the A: drive
....snip
3. You have FindFast running. Go to the Control Panel, open FindFast
and delete all indexes and remove the FindFast icon from the Start
folder. Unless you have an extraordinary amount of Office files
FindFast is of little value to you.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=199787
OFF2000: How to Turn Off the Find Fast Indexer
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;158705
OFF97: How to Disable the Find Fast Indexer
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;135476
OFF95: Office for Windows 95 Find Fast Indexer Overview

4. You have a shortcut in the start-programs menu pointed to a
nonexistent drive.
....snip

Some times just putting any 3.5" disk in the drive and accessing it and
then closing with the X in the upper right hand corner will clear the
constant accessing.

Also see the following page on ZDnet. It covers a lot of possibilities.
http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/pctech/co...ns/uu1617a.htm
--
Gary Woodruff
MS MVP-DTS (Win XP)
......End of Quote........

do a search for *.lnk

Done! So?

if there is any app that ran from the A: drive...
you can delete that link

???

A: is usually the first boot device (so you can boot from a floppy)
and it is therefore normal for it to be accessed at start up.

This isn't that. Plus, my BIOS is set to boot from C: and pretty much
ignore A:.

Philo is probably spot on

If I knew what he was talking about...

maybe your AV is polling
the drive to see if anything is in there?

Not a chance. I never had an AV ever until about 2 weeks ago and my
reason for getting it was this spurious A: access.

That said, the AV updates itself every 20 minutes, it seems. I'm gonna
roach it because it's SO annoying.

Can someone please tell me what one such is?

Sure, Malcolm! One such is FileMon, which is he

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...k/Filemon.mspx

Sorry you didn't think to look before you asked.

(1) If your virus checker is set to scan the floppy, turn that function
off.

Not that.

(2) Is "A:\" mentioned at "START, Programs, MS-DOS Prompt, SET"?

??? When I open a prompt and type SET, there's no ref to A:, if that's
what you mean.

C:\Windows\PIF\ is used to hold .pif's that Windows creates when they
cannot be put anywhere else.

Um... Looking at all the PIF files on my computer, there are probably 2
that I might've used once in the '90s. This has only been happening for
some months. So I don't think this has any relation.

Control Panel, System, Performance tab, File System button, Floppy
Disk tab.

Was unchecked.

You have FindFast running.

Never heard of it.

Go to the Control Panel, open FindFast

No such item.

Unless you have an extraordinary amount of Office files

I have never ever once ever at all had ANY Office files or any of its
programs. I once had a job in which I used a DOS version of Word. I
think it was Word 2.0. I think it was 1991? So that's out.

Also see the following page on ZDnet. It covers a lot of possibilities.
http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/pctech/co...ns/uu1617a.htm

You don't get that page on ZDnet.

Thanks, Gary. I'll just have to see what FileMon tells me.