XP Constantly Seeking Floppy Drive

[HoppaLong]

XP Pro_SP3

I know what you're thinking.  Why would anyone need a floppy disk drive?  In addition to having many bootable flash
drives, I just feel more secure having a working floppy drive that can load a boot disk if needed.  (I've got an unopened
box with 200 new floppy disks.)

The system is continuously flashing the floppy LED.  I hear that brief jolt each time the system checks for a disk.
This problem started about three days ago.  It seems like malware is blamed for almost everything.  The system is
not infected with malware.  Its clean.

I tested the floppy drive with an MS-DOS boot disk.  No problems.  Its working fine.  I temporarily disabled the floppy
drive in Device Manager to protect it from self-destruction.

I can't find any procedure on the web for resolving this problem.  Several sites recommend an app called Reimage Repair:

http://threadposts.org/question/2217973/Random-floppy-drive-seek-and-hard-drive-light-flashing.html

If you google about Reimage Repair there are many negative comments.  I don't think it's a good idea to install this
app.

Is there something I can do to stop XP Pro from seeking the floppy drive over and over?

[jaclaz]

3 hours ago, HoppaLong said:

I can't find any procedure on the web for resolving this problem.  Several sites recommend an app called Reimage Repair:

http://threadposts.org/question/2217973/Random-floppy-drive-seek-and-hard-drive-light-flashing.html

If you google about Reimage Repair there are many negative comments.  I don't think it's a good idea to install this
app.

Actually it is a terrible idea, that site is (clearly) a scam.

It is a generic text filled up with technobabbling that invariably delivers you he same (crappy) repair software, examples:

http://threadposts.org/question/517069/EMET-5-5-fails-to-load-on-reboot-with-some-group-policy-editor-settings.html

Actually being "winwiki.org":

http://winwiki.org/outlook-express/

It also covers the Internet Explorer 10 zing error 

http://winwiki.org/internet-explorer-10-freezing/

Quote

How to fix Internet Explorer 10 zing Error?

Click here follow the steps to fix Internet Explorer 10 zing and related errors.

 

jaclaz
 

[GrofLuigi]

I vaguely remember there were multiple reasons for this. One is that something referenced something in recent docs, so you should clear them (ccleaner?). Others were more complex and usually it was the last thing I tried, but I forgot them all. 

GL

 

[jumper]

Perhaps a shortcut to the Floppy was added to your desktop or SendTo folder. If you already have one on your desktop, something is triggering desktop refreshes (select a desktop item and hit F5 to trigger manually).

Perhaps something is trying to load the icon of a recently used app from the floppy, or is displaying thumbnails of recently opens docs and checking for their existance. Check the registry for references to A:

It not an app, then try flushing your system ShellIconCache.

[dencorso]

Other possibilities are described here.

[Tripredacus]

Dencorso's link mentions FindFast, the first thing I thought of when seeing this topic title. I remember having that issue on Win9x/NT4 systems.

[HoppaLong]

You're absolutely correct, jaclaz.  I was very tired when I stumbled across that junk app.  Fortunately, a quick Google
search was enough to bring my exhausted brain back to reality.

I FOUND THE CAUSE AND SOLUTION!

Several months ago I had to disable AutoPlay in the Group Policy Editor.  It wasn't just crashing my system, it was
exploding my system!  As soon as AutoPlay was disabled, I could load a flash drive or an optical disk with no trouble.
Disabling AutoPlay created another problem.  I like to create my own autorun.inf files on flash drives.  They're useless
if AutoPlay is disabled.

A very nice applet called "USB Detect Launch" will run any script or program.  You provide the applet with a volume
label and a command line for each flash drive (or any USB device):

https://mattcollinge.wordpress.com/software/usb-detect-and-launch/

Shortly after disabling AutoPlay I found USB Detect Launch.  I assumed it was created to ignore parallel connected
devices like a floppy drive.  Apparently, I was right until something changed a few days ago.  After many months this
applet decided to "seek" my floppy drive!

The solution is very simple.  Add this command to the list:

ignore:a:\

This question has no logical answer, but I'll ask anyway.  Why did USB Detect Launch ignore my floppy drive for several
months without the "ignore" command?

[HarryTri]

You 'll never find out. I have seen myself many things that was never able to explain. One thing I learned is that if some program was working correctly and now it doesn't and there is no obvious reason for that, then there might be a (possibly serious) problem with the Windows installation itself. That is usually the case in my case (although I maintain my system once a week -defrag, disk check and the same), I hope you are more lucky than me. Anyway this behavioral change doesn't seem to be some alerting, just ignore it and go on.