Win2k problem

[FOBSIDE]

Whenever I right click on a file to pull up the menu to view properties or open with, my floppy drive asks me to insert a floppy disk. Does anyone know why this happens or how I can prevent it from happening?

 

[zuffy]

Disable your anti-virus program or turn off the floppy scan option. If that don't help, try to uninstall the anit-virus software.

 

[FOBSIDE]

ok that brings up another question...in win2k version of norton antvirus, how do i disable the scanning of floppy drive?

 

[FOBSIDE]

its actually not everything i right click on...stuff on my desktop doesnt cause it to ask for a floppy. does that mean its not the antivirus software?

 

[FOBSIDE]

im still getting the floppy drive asking for a disk every time i right click on folders. it doesnt do this for any icon on my desktop but it does this for everything else. every drive i have it does this and every file in those drives it does this. its really annoying cuz the floppy drive grinds while its looking for a disk. any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jaywallen]

FOBSIDE: Don't ask me why I'm asking this, but -- do you have a service called ZiptoA running?

Regards,
Jim

 

[FOBSIDE]

nope, not running that.

 

[BT7990]

To disable the floppy scan, open antivirus-options-antivirus-auto protect-advanced-unchech both boxs for floppy scan.

 

[jaywallen]

Oh, while I'm considering weird possibilities, how about your Recent Documents list? I've never seen it cause this phenomenon on a W2K system, but a Recent Documents shortcut to a file on a floppy can cause floppy access every time you do anything with Explorer on a Win9X system. Long shot, but a possibility.

Regards,
Jim

 

[FOBSIDE]

ive ruled out both the floppy scan in norton and that documents thing. thanks tho...anything else it might be?

heres a list of programs i have installed.

3dfx tools
adaptec easy cd creator 4
adobe acrobat 4
aim
cuteftp
icq
dreamweaver
fireworks
freehand
intellipoint
netscape communicate 4.76
norton ghost 2001
norton antivirus 2001
partition magic 6.0
quick time 4
real jukebox plus
real player plus
stuffit
winamp
winrar
winzip
zonealarm

 

[jaywallen]

I seem to be specializing in long shots, so here goes -- I'd check the options for the three compression utilities, just in case an option has been set to use the floppy as a working location. Since most compression utilities can place entries in the right-click context menu, the activation of the context menu could cause the application to try to access the drive to see if a diskette is present.

Oh, and if you have the "Send To Any Folder" power toy installed, that can cause accessing of the floppy drive every time you initiate the context menu if it has been used to send a file to A: and the entry is still contained in the History. (You can get rid of the problem by clearing the history.) I found this out once when I used the Send To Any Folder selection for this purpose instead of the Send to Floppy selection.

I'm going to follow this with interest. This is an issue that crops up ever-once-in-a-while in message threads in various places, and ofentimes no solution shows up. Hope that's not the case with your situation. I know it can really be annoying.

Regards,
Jim

 

[BudB]

As a trouble shooting technique you might go into Ctrl Panel, System, Hardware, Device Manager, Floppy Disk Drive and temporatily disable it. See what program or programs might give you a device error if you do. This may point you in the right direction. I can't promise it will but I have used this technique to successfully trouble shoot hardware bugs in the past.

 

[FOBSIDE]

jaywallen
unfortunately its not the compression utilities and i dont believe this to be the SEND TO menu item on right click. my documents list is cleared also so i dunno what it could be.

BudB
ive uninstalled the floppy drive from my system settings already. when i right click it doesnt ask for a floppy cuz theres obviously no drive there. instead it tells me a: drive is not present.

thanks guys both for your suggestions. have no idea what to do. basically im going to unplug it as a last resort because the floppy drive is pretty much useless to me except for when i need to boot a floppy for ghosting or reinstalling something. anyone else with ideas on this? your help is greatly appreciated.

 

[FOBSIDE]

PROBLEM SOLVED

basically under my profile, there's a hidden folder called SENDTO and in there is the list of places you can send the file to from the right click menu. basically i deleted the A: from this folder and now it doesnt ask for the floppy anymore.

whats ironic is the friend that pointed out the solution to me...he's a mac user. he wouldnt have know how to solve it but he works in NT all day for citicorp. 2k is a little different from NT so he kept looking for my profile in WINNT and had this confused look on his face til i told him it was in DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS. chalk one up for the mac users!

 

[jaywallen]

Hi, FOBSIDE. Glad you got it resolved!

Oooh, that's weird! That's in the same folder that I was referring to. But your situation is exactly the opposite from the behavior I've seen before. It's generally Send To A: that's okay to use and the Send to Any Folder that's okay to use for anything EXCEPT drive A:. The only thing I can think of to explain this is that some open reference to an attempted write to drive A: still exists somewhere from an aborted / unsuccessful write attempt. The ZipToA service was the first thing I thought of, but other possibilities exist.

I'm gonna do some experimenting to see if I can recreate this on my system. Thanks for presenting an interesting problem.

Regards,
Jim

 

[BudB]

I have Send To Floppy enabled in the Send To folder and it will only tell me to "insert a floppy into the A drive" if I use the Send To command itself. Merely right clicking on the file does nothing but bring up the list of actions. I tend to agree with jaywallen's explanation but I can't duplicate it on my machine for the life of me, even going so far as removing the floppy disk in the middle of the send to operation.

 

[FOBSIDE]

i am puzzled as to why it did this still but im glad its resolved. i have never once in my life used the SEND TO command in the right click menu. i have no idea why...i would like to know though cuz it is a mystery.