Killing Floppy Support

[edblor]

Is there any way that you can totally disable the Floppy drive in a Windows environment?

I have disabled it in the BIOS, but Windows sometimes does not like to load (so I enabled it again). I have also disabled it in my control panel, and WindowsXP still wants to use it when I install hardware/software.

Anyway I can turn it off/disable it so it takes up zero resources, and WindowsXP does not see it/ask for it?

Thanks y'all

Edblor

 

[Locutus4657]

If your system is so starved for memory that not supproting the floppy improves anything then you're in a lot of trouble!



<< Is there any way that you can totally disable the Floppy drive in a Windows environment?

I have disabled it in the BIOS, but Windows sometimes does not like to load (so I enabled it again). I have also disabled it in my control panel, and WindowsXP still wants to use it when I install hardware/software.

Anyway I can turn it off/disable it so it takes up zero resources, and WindowsXP does not see it/ask for it?

Thanks y'all

Edblor >>

 

[edblor]

That's not it at all actually

It's more or less a legacy thing that I wish M$ would let go of.

I know there are a lot of ppl/organizations that need the floppy, however the enthusiast community, and any P.C. user using new hardware does not. With CDRs/DVD burners and ZIP drives priced where they are, the floppy is obsolete

Edblor

 

[CTho9305]

i wonder what happens if you delete the floppydisk files in c:\windows\system32\drivers

 

[Nothinman]

I have never had XP give me a problem about not having a floppy in my laptop.

And I'm willing to bet this thread gets closed very soon...

 

[edblor]

That's a nice attitude bud

Have you ever installed anything on the lappy? If so, has it ever pointed to the A: drive, you know, with the little BROWSE button beside it?

That is what I am talking about here! WinXP, in fact all flavours of Windows, ask to search the A: by default. I would also bet that your lappy has support for a floppy. I too have a Toshiba slim lappy with NO floppy drive. But just yesterday it asked to look in the A: drive when I installed a game. It wanted to look in the "mysterious" A: drive that I too, do not have!

</sarcasm/rant>

Any other stoopid comments? Or just some solid advice about my question.......

Edblor

[edit]I never said WinXP "gave me problems" regarding the floppy. My question was regarding the legacy support for the floppy ingrained into WinXP.[/edit]

 

[Nothinman]

That's a nice attitude

Sorry, but look around. This forum is highly moderated to stop posts that aren't 'Highly Technical' and frankly this isn't.

Have you ever installed anything on the lappy? If so, has it ever pointed to the A: drive, you know, with the little BROWSE button beside it?

Well it's not much use to me without software, so yes. Running both 2K and XP most browse buttons start at "My Documents", the ones that have a:\ in them I know enough to paste the correct path in or change it to c:\ before clicking browse.

I would also bet that your lappy has support for a floppy.

Yea, if I pull out the battery or DVD drive. (for the record I'm using a Dell Inspiron 4100)

I never said WinXP "gave me problems" regarding the floppy. My question was regarding the legacy support for the floppy ingrained into WinXP

There is no 'ingrained' legacy support, atleast that I've noticed in my ~5 months owning my laptop with never putting a floppy drive in it (well I put it in twice to use Ghost, but XP never booted so as far as it's concerned there isn't one).

 

[Shalmanese]

Actually, XP for me just points to the next entry in the list if I dont have my floppy installed.

 

[Locutus4657]

I wouldn't say floppies are obsolete, even with Zip disks/CDRs etc... For instance a floppy came in handy when I had to install System Commander 2000 on my machine. If you disable the floppy drive in BIOS the floppy drive should go away in my computer and from the system completely... At least it has in my system (disabled it because my drive no longer funtions after 7 years service). The floppy controller will still appear in device manager... Don't blame MS for that though, if it's anyones fault it's those darn MB Manufaturers like Asus who for some reason keep putting floppy controllers on their motherboards...



<< That's not it at all actually

It's more or less a legacy thing that I wish M$ would let go of.

I know there are a lot of ppl/organizations that need the floppy, however the enthusiast community, and any P.C. user using new hardware does not. With CDRs/DVD burners and ZIP drives priced where they are, the floppy is obsolete

Edblor >>

 

[ProviaFan]

For the record, I have a WinXP machine that has no floppy, and it never complains about it, although I just checked to see and noticed that the floppy controller was detected in the device manager.