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Weird floppy drive problem with 2000.


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When I boot my PC, the floppy drive runs for several minutes, during which time I cannot access it with a disk inserted.

Also, whenever I plug in a USB storage device the floppy drive activates and runs for several minutes.

Windows will also seemingly randomly decide that a perfectly good floppy is "not formatted" and refuses to recognize ANY floppy disk until I either reboot or format a floppy, which will take a very long time.

I've tried many things like hunting though the Registry and zapping all references to A:\ , emptying the Documents menu, there's nothing in the Startup folder except the HotSync manager for my Handspring Visor (which of course was not installed from the floppy) and I forget how many other tips and tricks I've tried!

I run the latest version of Free AVG 7 antivirus (latest updates of course!) and I regularly scan with Spybot Search & Destroy 1.3 and AdAware SE 5.0. So I'm pretty @#%%@ing certain it's not "malware" or a virus having fun with the floppy.

I really don't want to "nuke and pave" and reinstall 2000 Pro (slipstreamed to SP4) because I'm on dialup and the post SP4 updates (plus the software I really use) will take me many hours to install. I do video editing on this thing and

reinstalling will muck up the drive letters etc, which means that I'll have to re-link all the media for every one of my Premiere projetcs. :(

The box is an ABIT KG7RAID board with an Athlon XP 2100+, 512meg PC2100 and five (5) IDE hard drives sized between 14gig and 233gig, plus a CD-RW and a DVD+-RW.

NIC- Realtek RTL 8139A

Sound- Soundblaster Live! 5.1 MP3+Gamer (with Live! drive connector but no drive)

Video- MSI GeForce4 Ti 4200

Modem USR 56K Voice Pro PnP external on serial port (also supports USB)

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Windows, for some strange reason, seems to look at the floppy drive occationaly. If there is a problem with the hardware, windows could be seeming something but is not sure what it is and so tries to access it.

The problems sounds to me as if the read/write heads on the floppy drive have gone. For the £7-8($5) or so I'd just buy a new floppy drive.

This is usually the case with when it tries to format an already formatted disk.

Taggs

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But what about it running the drive, with no disk in, at EVERY bootup, for at least five minutes?

SOMETHING is attempting to access the floppy, but I haven't been able to ferret out what it is. :huh:

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If there is a problem with the hardware, windows could be seeming something but is not sure what it is and so tries to access it.

This could go the bios as well. :wacko:

If you have a spare floppy drive, try replacing it and see what happens!

Myself personally, I do not have a floppy drive I don’t see much point as CD's are so much quicker and relatively cheap or a USB data stick, although you may have a reason for using a floppy drive?

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I keep the floppy drive around because I work on PCs so I'm always needing to make boot disks for updating the BIOS or to put NIC drivers on so I can get the box on the LAN for shoving over all the other drivers.

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Sounds like you are still installing manually? Have you thought about using RIS to install the OS? That way you dont need Floppy for NIC drivers it's done over the LAN.

How do you connect to the LAN without NIC drivers I hear you say? All 98 compliant NIC's have the ability to boot from the LAN.

Have a look at my documentation for setting up RIS!

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=36833&st=10

You could also create a boot CD with Bios updates (Just a thought!) :D

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Okay let's do a little test. Open your system up and disconnect the floppy data and power connector temporaraly and then boot up.If your system doesn't sit there for 5 minutes trying to talk to a floppy then it's a good bet the your drive has developed problems. If your sytstem still hangs there trying to talk to a floppy then your might have a software issue, with no drive attached windows may spit up an error that could give you extra info on whats causing the problem.

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It doesn't do it during the POST or during Windows' booting, nor does it cause Windows to pause or hang while the floppy is running. It just prevents access to the floppy drive until it decides to quit. Just starts in spinning as soon as Windows is done or almost done booting up.

I'll try another floppy drive and see what happens. I've only had this one since I bought it brand new to install in a secondhand Packard Bell 486SX system in the early 90's. I've shifted it to every new or "new" personal PC of mine since.

If it's kaputski, I'll pop a lable on it "My very first 1.44M floppy drive". (Sentimental value, y'know? ;) ) It's given me a lot of good service over the years.

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