Random floppy drive seek and hard drive light flashing

[seeker3]

I've been noticing after re-installing Win 7 that I get random floppy drive seeks and the hard drive light flashes like crazy and then everything is fine again.I have Clamwin AV,Spyware Blaster and Spybot S&D installed,but that's it,no Windows Defender or Essentials AV.Any ideas what causes this? It's a minor annoyance,but I just want to make sure it's not damaging anything.Also would Readyboost help me? I've got 2 gigs dual channel PC3200 ram(or I could go with 2.5 gig single channel PC2700)and a P4 at 3 gig until I can afford to upgrade my comp.This is my first post in quite awhile so I hope this is in the right place Thanks.

 

[fseal]

I have a fix for the floppy drive problem. Unplug it!

But er, it could easily be the AV software doing it, or possibly the Windows indexer.

To track it down you could try catching it in the act (if it's prolonged enough) by using the "Resource Monitor" found on the Performance tab of the Task Manager. Click on the "Disk" tab and wait for it to happen and see if something new shows up as doing disk IO.

Though also, disabling the AV software temporarily and see if it stops might be a first try...

 

[pbcopter]

The floppy drive periodic access has been in Windows 7 since the beta.
I just disable it in the Device manager until or if I ever need it.

 

[seeker3]

The floppy drive periodic access has been in Windows 7 since the beta.
I just disable it in the Device manager until or if I ever need it.

Yeah that's right,I forgot about that.I'm going to disable it also,it's no biggie,I was more or less just curious.I thought it might be the AV also but it happens so fast and then it's over,lol.Much easier to just disable it 'cause you never know,maybe I'll need it for something sometime,lol.Anyway thanks for the replies,this is still the best forum for Win7,great bunch

 

[seeker3]

In my post I mentioned my memory setup,so should I stick with what I've got or do the 2.5 gig at lower speed? Also I hope to be putting a more modern system together soon and am wondering if a dual core processor is enough these days? I'll be playing a lot of shooters and browsing the web,so I'm doubting the wisdom of a dual core.So I need some advice, dual or quad core? Thanks.

 

[pbcopter]

I would stick with the 2 GB dual channel (faster than single channel).
I doubt if readyboost would really help much.

 

[cluberti]

As to the access, run procmon and look for seeks to the floppy disk drive (or watch the file/registry access during the large amounts of file/disk access) to see what's happening. You can set up filters if you want to watch for something specific.

 

[seeker3]

Thanks cluberti,I appreciate the info,and I'll let you all know what I find.It happens very rarely,but I'll check it out.