How to stop Windows from wanting a disk in the Floppy Drive?

[DaveR]

I am still on XP Pro and have a strange problem. All has been fine for years...as fine as XP can be..., but a few days ago I took a blank floppy disk and put copies of a few files on it. No problem.

Since then, whenever we boot that system, XP comes up, and then gives errors as it looks for a disk in drive A:. They go away if we put in a blank, and tell it to retry. Since the disk is blank it is not looking for any file.

Any idea how to clear this? It never has happened before, and does not happen on my other XP system.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I am still on XP Pro and have a strange problem. All has been fine for years...as fine as XP can be..., but a few days ago I took a blank floppy disk and put copies of a few files on it. No problem.

Since then, whenever we boot that system, XP comes up, and then gives errors as it looks for a disk in drive A:. They go away if we put in a blank, and tell it to retry. Since the disk is blank it is not looking for any file.

Any idea how to clear this? It never has happened before, and does not happen on my other XP system.

I think that has to do with Explorer.exe's "Recent File List" or "Recent Documents", or whatever it's called. It stores a link to the file, which was on the floppy drive, which causes Explorer.exe to refresh it's icons and links, and tries to hit the floppy drive. Since it doesn't contain a disk, it throws up a "not ready" error.

You could try clearing out the "Recent Files" menu, and see if the problem disappears.

 

[code65536]

What VL said is probably correct. In case it isn't, further troubleshooting can be done with the following:

Download the Sysinternals Suite.

Option 1) You said this happens at boot? Look in Autoruns. Anything in there that looks like it would access the disk?

Option 2) When the error message comes up, before clicking retry, fire up Process Explorer and use the find-a-window's-process tool (target-shaped icon in toolbar) to find the process that owns that error dialog to find out who the offender is.

 

[DaveR]

Thanks...I will look at both of these ideas and let you know how it goes.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

No offense intended, but I had to chuckle a bit. In all my computer builds over the past decade or so excluding the two most recent, I've either purchased or recycled floppy drives.

But I don't think the last few generations of motherboards even come with a port for a floppy ribbon cable. I've slowly drifted toward a more comfortable accommodation with optical disks and thumb drives. But now people tell me that computers don't even ship with DVD reader/burners anymore. I don't know how accurate that latter assessment may be; I just found it troubling.

When I was informed that computers don't ship with floppies, it was mid-2006!! I had trouble wrapping my head around that, even as I was using thumb drives frequently.

. . . And I'm familiar with the phenomenon of "floppy LED showing activity' -- even with Windows 7. The older I get, the more trouble I have with an accelerating pace of change . . . .

 

[Raduque]

I can't remember when in the past several years, that I used an optical drive that wasn't in a gaming console.

The dvd writer in my gaming desktop isn't even hooked up!

My Ultrabook doesn't have an optical drive. Most laptops dont seem to come with them, but I think most desktops except the really tiny boxes (Intel NUC, etc) have them.

I stopped using unreliable floppy drives around 2002ish.

 

[John Connor]

Don't understand why anyone can get away without an optical drive. You need it to install the OS, and even if you wanted to use USB you need an optical drive to burn the image to USB. ALL Windows comes in the form of a optical disk. Blu-ray is what you want for storage or M-disk. I have many games and prefer my games be on optical media. I don't do the steaming pile of crap thing.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Not true. I've booted into a live Linux and OS X using a USB thumb drive boot.

 

[DaveR]

Geeze, of course we use DVD on our desktop(s). However, I still have floppy drives and this all started when I grabbed a blank floppy to move a small data file. Anyway, I did clear recently used and will reboot now. I also d/l the Sysinternals and see what I get if that did not work.

OH, BarkingGhostar, we have spent a lot of time in Atlanta...Perimeter Center...LOTS of traffic!!

 

[Zaap]

Okay, I have to ask...

People STILL use floppy drives??

(Seriously, I had NO idea. Haven't touched one in at least ten years, probably longer. No intention of doing so ever again unless its a museum exhibit.)

 

[It's Not Lupus]

Disable it in device manager.

 

[DaveR]

Well, I used the Sysinternals and found what is bringing up this error!

What happens is that when XP boots, it, for some reason, is looking for a disk...even a blank...in Drive A:. XP finishes booting but the Error Window says ...

WINDOWS NO DISK with an exception processing message. It then gives me the choice of Cancel Try Again or Continue.

If I put a blank Floppy in Drive A:. the message will go away if I tell it to Try Again.

Anyway, I used Process Explorer (great tool) and if I move the TARGET Icon over the Error Window it says that it is CSRSS.EXE that is causing this. This is a Client Server Runtime Process.

Any ideas how to stop this? All I ever did was put a blank in and copied a small data file on it.

 

[DaveR]

Disable it in device manager.

Well, I could try that. We do not use the floppy anyway. However, I would still like to know if I can somehow fix it.

 

[Doomer]

Try loading drivers via F6 when loading XP on an older computer or flashing the BIOS and then tell me floppy drives are useless. There are lots and lots of people out there with older computers who won't give them up until they die for one reason or another. I keep a flopp[y drive in the drawer for just such occasions but I'll admit, it's seldom that I need to pull it out. But when you need it, you need it.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Okay, I have to ask...

People STILL use floppy drives??

(Seriously, I had NO idea. Haven't touched one in at least ten years, probably longer. No intention of doing so ever again unless its a museum exhibit.)

US armed forces missile command still uses 8" floppies.

 

[JManInPhoenix]

Not true. I've booted into a live Linux and OS X using a USB thumb drive boot.

This. When I recently did a clean install of Ubuntu 14.04, I put the image on a USB stick and loaded my OS through it. I have a DVD burner but haven't used it since I built this system last year (except to burn a disc just to make sure it worked).

 

[ViRGE]

Try loading drivers via F6 when loading XP on an older computer or flashing the BIOS and then tell me floppy drives are useless. There are lots and lots of people out there with older computers who won't give them up until they die for one reason or another. I keep a flopp[y drive in the drawer for just such occasions but I'll admit, it's seldom that I need to pull it out. But when you need it, you need it.

XP was retired and USB BIOS updates became common in the Core 2 era for enthusiast mobos; even earlier than that for OEM machines. You'd have to go find a 9 year old machine to come up with a reason to use a floppy drive.

 

[John Connor]

You can always disable the drive in BIOS.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

This. When I recently did a clean install of Ubuntu 14.04, I put the image on a USB stick and loaded my OS through it. I have a DVD burner but haven't used it since I built this system last year (except to burn a disc just to make sure it worked).

I recently was forced to burn a DVD in order to install FreeNAS. There was no alternative method. Nothing to do with the hardware I had available, but rather the FreeNAS project just didn't offer an installer in any other format.

First optical media burned in three years. And I haven't touched a floppy drive (LOL) in 7-8 years.

DaveR, yes, Atlanta's traffic makes its airport look streamlined.

 

[John Connor]

I still have a working zip drive. That thing was awesome in its hay day.

 

[DaveR]

You can always disable the drive in BIOS.

Yes, but I can try Device Manager first.

Anyway, we used to live in Arvada so we know Loveland!

 

[John Connor]

Device manager would probably work, but in my experience I had to turn it off in BIOS.

Loveland, home of the Loveland Indians! And nice looking cheerleaders...

 

[corkyg]

There used to be an old trick we used back in the 80s. Yeah, remove it from the boot sequence in BIOS. We used to just keep a blank floppy in the drive.

 

[DaveR]

OK, but what bothers me is that we never had this issue before.

 

[DaveR]

Disabling it in Device Manager worked. As I said, I sure wonder what happened. Perhaps I can enable it again a few weeks from now and XP will get the hint.