# My A: Drive Scares Me **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 30, 2000, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-a-drive-scares-me/43444 "2000-11-30T21:33:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2000, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-a-drive-scares-me/43444/1 "2000-11-30T21:33:31Z")
Every now and then, for no apparant reason, my A: drive (standard 3.5 floppy drive) tries to access the floppy disk in the drive. Of course, there is never a floppy disk in the drive when this happens. Even when I’m not using any programs, and the screensaver is running, I’ll occassionally hear the annoying sound. I’ve begun to wonder if my floppy drive is possessed by Satan. Or Bill Gates (assuming the two are mutually exclusive …). I’ve run Norton Antivirus, which didn’t find any viruses. I’ve shut down every damned program I can, but that doesn’t prevent it. It happens when I am offline and when I am online. Does anyone know what might be causing this seemingly-random attempted access of my floppy? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2000, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-a-drive-scares-me/43444/2 "2000-11-30T21:50:47Z")
Mine’s done this since I installed a new hard drive a few weeks ago. I just put a dummy disk in the drive so it doesn’t get into an endless ‘searching for disk’ loop and roll along. Thank you for bringing it up…now maybe I’ll find out what’s wrong with mine, too. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Obvious\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Obvious\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obvious_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2000, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-a-drive-scares-me/43444/3 "2000-11-30T22:50:15Z")
Humm… it could be a trojan (someone trying to snoop around on your computer from another computer). Try scanning your computer with another anti-virus program. From past experience, I’ve found no single AV program will catch every single virus that pops up… Try using AVP at [http://www.avp.com](http://www.avp.com). ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2000, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-a-drive-scares-me/43444/4 "2000-11-30T22:57:30Z")
Don’t panic yet. MS Word will do that sometimes on one of my home PCs while I have a document open. I have no idea why, but it only starts happening after I start Word for the first time, and does not stop until I reboot. ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2000, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-a-drive-scares-me/43444/5 "2000-11-30T23:13:00Z")
Thanks for the link, **Obvious Guy**. A paranoid fella like me can’t have enough anti-virus utilities. 🙂 As for MS word, I too notice that it accesses the drive sometimes. I’ve always assumed this is Word automatically saving a back-up file in case of problems. However, I almost never use Word. Notepad and Wordpad are nearly always enough for me. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2000, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-a-drive-scares-me/43444/6 "2000-12-01T01:50:42Z")
Mine used to do that, just keep hitting it with a hammer till it stops ---
**Author:** ![bafaa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@bafaa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bafaa)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2000, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-a-drive-scares-me/43444/7 "2000-12-01T02:01:48Z")
I’m not sure if this will help you but it should at least make loading Windoze98 a little faster and that’s always a good thing. Here’s the link: [http://www.techtv.com/callforhelp/howto/jump/0,3652,2341309,00.html](http://www.techtv.com/callforhelp/howto/jump/0,3652,2341309,00.html) You can find more tips for speeding up startup by following the link. Here’s the tip about floppy drives: > [@](#): > > **Don’t look for floppies:** Did you know that each time Windows 98 boots it searches for new floppy drives? But when is the last time you installed a new floppy drive? Sheesh. To save a few seconds at start up, disable the ludicrous floppy drive scan. Here’s how: > > 1. Right-click on My Computer and select Properties. > 2. Click on the Performance tab followed by the File System button. > 3. Choose the Floppy Disk tab and uncheck Search for new floppy drives each time your computer starts. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2000, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-a-drive-scares-me/43444/8 "2000-12-01T17:32:01Z")
bafaa, I think the computer already started. Some virus scanners, like the guy has, scans drives all the time the computer is on. You’d have to change the virus scanner properties. ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2000, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-a-drive-scares-me/43444/9 "2000-12-01T18:15:11Z")
Unfortunately handy, it’s not quite that simple. My A: drive was doing the same thing before I had any anti-virus software on my machine. It hasn’t performed it’s little ritual yet today. I’m hoping this thread has scared the demon out of it. 🙂