My A Drive has started to spin up on start up and it didn't do this before this Saturday just gone.

LANGA LIST TIPS:
Actually, there are several possible reasons for this behavior. One of the most common is that the floppy drive is in the "Path" that Windows searches when it's looking for a file to open or save. When there's no floppy in the drive, the drive heads seeks several times (and you hear "puka puka puka...") until Windows realizes there's nothing there to read, and gives up.

The Path is usually set in your Autoexec.bat file. There are several ways of seeing (and editing) what's in your Autoexec, but the one that works on all versions of Windows is to open Notepad, and then use File/Open to open the Autoexec.bat file, usually located in the C:\ directory.

In the Autoexec, you'll usually see a Path statement: this tells Windows where to look for files and in what order.

For example, PATH = A:\; C:\; C:\WINDOWS;...

would instruct Windows to look to retrieve or save files first on the A: drive, then in the root directory of the C drive, then in the windows directory on C:, and so on. Generally speaking, a Path shouldn't contain any references to any floppy drives because by their nature, they're used for temporary storage and often won't even have a disk in them.

To prevent this, just delete the reference to the floppy. In the above example, the Path would read PATH = C:\; C:\WINDOWS;... Reboot after saving your edit, and you're done.

(If your system doesn't have an Autoexec.bat, just create a standard text file with Notepad and either save it as or rename it to c:\autoexec.bat; that's all there is to it.)

Sometimes, especially after installing software from a floppy, the A: drive may be temporarily appended to the path, leading to the same effect---but this goes away after a reboot.

There are other ways you can get unwanted floppy activity, but those are the prime culprits!

Just check you boot sequence in the CMOS/BIOS. Mine is set to run from floppy first but it only runs for a few seconds. If it can't find a floppy then the main drive takes over.

I could be way off the mark, but I've had something similar happen.

Short story, I opened a file associated with a small cataloging program for data cd's that was on a floppy. Then I did it to myself again several months later. Only this time notepad got associated with my A: drive because I stupidly opened a notepad that was on a floppy disk. Found out recently that the same thing can happen reading a Word.doc from a floppy! lol! ( QUOTE El Tel " How did you sort this out " )

Fred Langa had some tips about this behavior too.



Anyway, what I'm getting at is that it might have something to do with the Card Reader file association. Or by coincidence you've opened a file of some kind from a floppy and the association to it got "stuck" in a: drive.
QUOTE El Tel " Would this include using a Briefcase on a USB memory stick on someones else's PC. "

My Autoexce.bat was okay. What I had to do was search my registry for all instances of the various file associations until I found an entry that mentioned a: drive. Once deleted, the chattering a drive went away. The three times it happened to me, I looked for .mss (that was the little catalog program), .txt and .doc. There were lots of hits, especially in classes that I kept clicking through, but I finally found them.

Edit: Also, have you made any changes in your antivirus? It could be scanning your a: drive on boot. QUOTE El Tel " No "

Clear out the Documents menu

In 98 its start - settings - Task bar & start menu - Start menu programs - Clear
Not sure about ME

If a floppy drive was used recentoy the system is still looking to access it as it is in the Documents menu.

then scan disk kicks in on re-start.

Does it read a floppy disk properly? Will it format a blank floppy disk?

Clear out the Documents menu
If a floppy drive was used recentoy the system is still looking to access it as it is in the Documents menu.

El Tel
I have plenty of Id 10 T interface cards sitting around.
How many do you want?