VLK: ok, attached is a screen shot of My Computer.
A:\ - is obviously the drive giving me trouble
C: = Boot Drive
D: = Storage/Internal Hard Drive
E: = DVD/RW
F: = Storage/Internal Hard Drive - Used as temp storage and “working drive” for apps like Photoshop and PowerDirector
G: + H: = External Hard Drive - Part of NAS - Netgeat SC101T - http://kb.netgear.com/app/products/model/a_id/2538 http://www.cnet.com.au/netgear-storage-central-turbo-sc101t-339282464.htm
My Webcam
Z: = Virtual Drive c/o PowerISO
The reason why 3 internal HD’s is that a while ago, maybe 2-3 years, I had some problems with my pc (before I used Avast) and Drives D and F were striped with each other (to make “one” drive). Anyways, my north bridge had died then came along a new mobo. Me and a friend of mine, had some trouble re-striping it as the mainboard didn’t want to do it and we didn’t want to take any extreme approaches as in doing something that may format the drive. Anyway, we got the data off the drive on another pc and i’ve got these 2 extra’s which do come in handy. D: is just storage and F: is mainly for temp data, and current working projects. G and H are networked through my NAS + Router. So, yes, removable They also require the Z-San Service (Zetera) for Windows to recognize them (sooooo bad, i dislike this alot) as The NAS uses a different filing system (DATAPLOW_ZFS). This needs to be installed on each machine wanting to access the NAS through the router, but you can just share the drives in windows for the same effect
And yes, the problem persists when this service is stopped.
Also, quick q = Does Avast! or any components of Avast! load or become active while in safemode?
Hmm, I have to say I’m a bit lost at this moment. The ProcMon log doesn’t indicate any requests targeted to A: at all - so I don’t even know where they’re coming from etc. It is very strange. So far, I have no idea what’s causing the floppy drive to start spinning.
We may try a different approach. You said it started happening after installing avast. So, does the problem happen even if you stop all Real-time Shields? Or if you stop the “avast antivirus” service?
In plain Safe Mode, no. In “Safe Mode with Networking” yes, a few network related drivers (namely, the avast TDI filters) get loaded. Why? Is the problem happening even in Safe Mode?
I was analyzing if the problem happens within safe-mode. I originally thought the problem also happened in safemode. These are my results.
SafeMode:
My Computer = No, no problems when I open My Computer
Skype = Yes (I just thought it would be notable if this was mentioned)
SafeMode with Networking:
My Computer: As Above
Skype: As Above
Also on logon/welcome screen, A:\ span about once or twice. Not sure for safemode though
Normal Logon with all Avast! Shields disabled:
My PC: As Above
Skype: As Above
On logon/welcome screen, A:\ spins about 7-8 times.
What other things can we try? :-\ I’m willing to try pretty much everything as I really want this problem gone! This problem is really starting to confuse me now :-\
Yeah, I’ve tried disabling all shields, certain shields one by one, I’ve been through the settings for each shield (that has settings) countless times. There’s one option, that scans floppy boot sectors when acessing but that is disabled by default. I’ve tried enabling/disabling it and other options. And now I’m at a loss
Could it be anything to do with the drivers used? They are just generic Windows Drivers.
Thanx!
EDIT: I’ve also tried uninstalling all floppy drivers and Floppy controllers in Device Manager to no avail.
but as I posted there I’ve tried:
In an effort to try and isolate the problem I’ve disabled all shields (same problem)
Uninstalled Avast but not rebooted (same problem)
Uninstalled Avast and allowed system to reboot (problem solved)
Reinstalled Avast just to see if problem behavior returns (yes it does)
So I would think that it since the problem still happens even after Avast is uninstalled (until rebooted anyway) that the looking at the sheilds as part of the problem is off base.
What does Avast leave modified and/or hooked into the system until rebooting even after it’s been uninstalled?
I’ve checked with proc. monitor and can’t find anything ???
Kinda hard to fix something you can’t reproduce. Noone here was able to show that it’s Avast accessing the drive in fact. I don’t have any such issue on any of the boxes w/ floppy drive. (two of them are XP SP3, one’s W7 x64).
to whom it may concern: remove the floppy drive!!! : not saying that to cure the symptom you should get rid of anything affected , but in this particular case >>> floppies : back 'em up on a usb key and ditch the reader ;D
As I’ve stated before …. It is patently ridiculous for me to have to disable perfectly good hardware to remedy a faulty software design. It’s much more likely that I will defend the victim rather than the offender.
To top it all off, yesterday morning, I saw a thread announcing that a new build had been released so; I downloaded and installed it hoping against hope, that the problem had been resolved. I re-enabled my floppy drive and opened Explorer and learned that the issue had not been addressed; Avast was still trying to protect me from my empty floppy drive and while doing so, delayed displaying my hard drive\folder structure. I shut off my computer and went to work. Oh well, maybe next update; this is not an earth shattering problem, just an annoyance
Last night, I started my computer and, at the Welcome Screen, I was greeted with the message that my floppy drive had no disc in it “Cancel – Retry – Continue” multiple times. After closing that dialog box repeatedly, my machine finally completed its boot process. This has happened on every reboot since.
Joy of joys, the developers DID address the issue and FLUBBED IT COMPLETELY making the issue even worse. Now, as an additional annoyance, I have to close quite a few useless announcements that I don’t have a disk in my floppy drive and I [u]still[/u] have the [u]original[/u] problem.
So what gives? Did the developers err again ……. Or did my computer [u]suddenly[/u] decide to let me know that my floppy drive was empty???
Now though, after trying again, I have found out that [b]Skype [/b]leaves a trail in ProcMon accessing the A:\ drive.
Second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth - nothing to prove that avast is causing the floppy access. So, for starters, if everyone there used that procmon thing to find out what’s accessing the floppy, something could be figured out. So yeah, a few others are having this problem. So there are “a few others” on Avira forums and elsewhere.
I did not have any problems with the floppy drive with Avast free but since I updated to Avast Pro last week, I am now noticing that every time I access explorer or storage on
my 2nd hard drive, the floppy is being accessed.
It might be that Avast itself is not accessing the drive but causing something else to. The easiest fix seems to be to disable the floppy for now.
Second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth - nothing to prove that avast is causing the floppy access.
Well, nothing except quite a few posters that chimed in during the course of those threads to say that the very same symptoms occured on their machines as soon as they started using Avast 5 and the symptoms disappeared once it was uninstalled. http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=56006.0 for one example, and my own experience for another.
I refuse to believe that this is just some bizarre coincidence. While it may not be irrefutable proof to you, it’s good enough for me.
So, for starters, if everyone there used that procmon thing to find out what's accessing the floppy, something could be figured out. So yeah, a few others are having this problem. So there are "a few others" on Avira forums and elsewhere.
As was noted earlier in this thread, Vlk couldn’t find where ProcMon showed that A:\ was accessed by Avast
The ProcMon log doesn't indicate any requests targeted to A: at all - so I don't even know where they're coming from etc. It is very strange. So far, I have no idea what's causing the floppy drive to start spinning.
I took that to mean that ProcMon didn’t monitor the request … but, I may have misinterpreted his statement.
So, I have now created two ProcMon log files:
Accessing Explorer with the floppy drive enabled
Accessing Explorer with the floppy drive disabled
I will upload these to the FTP site post haste but, upon examing the logs, I couldn’t see any indication of ProcMon logging that particular event either.
As a side note … this thread is about Avast not Avira … why bring them up? I’m just trying to help abate an annoyance to many Avast users, not promote Avira.
Edit: Another poster having the same symptoms just chimed in while I was composing this post. Coincidence???
Don’t take this personally, but “chime in” with no more info than “me too” is essentially useless if the developers can’t reproduce the issue. As is telling them to reproduce the issue by installing Avast. ;D
And you’ve completely misunderstood that Avira point - go search their forums for “floppy”… yeah, same issue. Of course unsolved due to complete lack of information provided by the reporters.
They also require the Z-San Service (Zetera) for Windows to recognize them (sooooo bad, i dislike this alot) as The NAS uses a different filing system (DATAPLOW_ZFS). This needs to be installed on each machine wanting to access the NAS through the router, but you can just share the drives in windows for the same effect 
not saying that to cure the symptom you should get rid of anything affected