I installed a floppy drive, now Windows 10 won't leave it alone.

A floppy drive? Why would anyone do that? For the simple reason that I work on many older computers so I have a need for a good old 1.44M floppy drive.

To start with, whenever I'd plug in or remove a USB drive, Windows would also check the floppy drive. Today I formatted a couple of floppy disks.

Now the bleeping thing will not stop trying to access the floppy drive every 30 seconds or so.

Short of disabling the floppy in BIOS, then enabling it only when I need to use the drive - how do I make Windows 10 ignore the drive except when I want it to, when *I* click on the drive in Explorer? It's like a kid with a new toy that it refuses to stop playing with.

Is this floppy drive an internal or external drive?

Internal. Connected to the built in floppy port on an Asrock 770 Extreme 3.

Also, I've seen lots of issues with floppies since Win7 wanting to reformat them. I also have clients with floppies they 'find' and want to check the data on them. I always open the write-protect switch before inserting into the drive to prevent that so as not to lose the data on them. Also use tape to cover the notch on the 5.25" disks. I usually use a WinXP computer with a combination 3.5"/5.25" floppy drive and a 250MB Zip drive for the recoveries.

This one either doesn't have that or it's disabled. In any case that's only for testing the floppy drive during POST.

It's periodically checking to see if there's a disk in the drive or if somethings changed with it or something. ISTR having this same issue with XP, which was the last time I had an internal floppy on my main computer. I think the fix was deleting something in the Registry, and deleting it again any time it went back to doing that.

A floppy drive should be completely ignored by the OS except for when the drive signals a disk change or the user accesses it or a program needs to read or write data. To the OS it should just be this 'lump', left alone except when it's told to use it.

Think of it like a manual can opener in a kitchen drawer. You may not use it very often but it's handy to have when you need it. Now imagine going into the kitchen every minute to open the drawer and stare at the can opener for two seconds.

I bought a brand new 1.44M drive back in the 90's and transferred it to every new PC I built, until one day it suffered a change line failure after probably 15 years. Still worked but could only be used for one disk insert per session because without the change line function the OS couldn't get the signal that a different disk was in so it would only show the cached directory info.

I have one of those 2-in-1 1.44M and 1.2M 5.25" drives. Got it the same time as a new PC build. I put everything together and what's this? The new motherboard only has support for ONE floppy drive? I could choose to use whichever part of the drive was selected by jumpers for A: and the computer would ignore the other drive. It wasn't just a BIOS limitation. I got BIOS modding software and enabled dual floppy support but the hardware still limited Windows to only seeing one drive.

One of these days I need to get an older computer to put that in.

Sorry, the switch and notch I referred to are on the floppy disks themselves.

The problem requiring their use is caused by Windows saying the disks need to be formatted which will destroy the data on them, seems there's a difference from earlier versions of Windows and DOS.

My combo drive is by Epson and only need one data cable from the motherboard. However, the BIOS has to support both drive A: and drive B: to use the combo which is the reason to keep the WinXP computer. Many motherboards of the last several years have only the A: support or none at all. For those [and Notebooks] I use a USB 2.0 3.5" floppy drive.

Galane said:

Internal. Connected to the built in floppy port on an Asrock 770 Extreme 3.

I only ask because of the boot order, if it's an internal drive. In your case you state that it is and by default the A drive (floppy) becomes the first boot drive. This could be some part of your issue. Make sure the boot order is set to C drive first and make the A drive last.

I keep a USB floppy for any such needs.....just easier for me.

Galane said:

A floppy drive? Why would anyone do that? For the simple reason that I work on many older computers so I have a need for a good old 1.44M floppy drive.

To start with, whenever I'd plug in or remove a USB drive, Windows would also check the floppy drive. Today I formatted a couple of floppy disks.

Now the bleeping thing will not stop trying to access the floppy drive every 30 seconds or so.

Short of disabling the floppy in BIOS, then enabling it only when I need to use the drive - how do I make Windows 10 ignore the drive except when I want it to, when *I* click on the drive in Explorer? It's like a kid with a new toy that it refuses to stop playing with.

I have a vague recollection of having run into this with a previous version of Windows.
In general terms, the solution is to remove from Explorer any references which might cause it to poll the drive.
Especially your MRU's and "recent files". Clear them out for any links or references that might lead back to the FDD.