XP Pro SP2 phantom A: drive

I have a home-built PC that has never had an internal floppy drive
installed. I'm running XP Pro SP2. I have an external USB floppy drive
that I use occasionally. It used to be that drive A: would appear in My
Computer only when I connected the USB drive, and then go away after I used
"Unplug or Eject Hardware" in the system tray to stop the drive before
disconnecting it. Now, A: is always there; the USB floppy drive shows up
and works as B: when I connect it. If I go into Device Manager and
uninstall the floppy disk drive, A: does disappear -- but only until the
next reboot.

I'm not sure when this began. It may have been when one of my kids used the
USB floppy and simply unplugged it without stopping it first. Or it may
have started after I installed SP2. I guess it's not a real problem, but it
concerns me whenever Windows behavior changes unexpectedly [yes, I know, I
shouldn't be surprised when it does ].

Any advice? Thanks.

Check your Bios settings, make sure floppy drive is disabled. P.S. - You may
also want to disable your floppy controller.

You could have recently flashed your BIOS and then BIOS could have
re-enabled your floppy drive and/or floppy controller.

--
William



"Haney" wrote in message
...
I have a home-built PC that has never had an internal floppy drive
installed. I'm running XP Pro SP2. I have an external USB floppy drive
that I use occasionally. It used to be that drive A: would appear in My
Computer only when I connected the USB drive, and then go away after I used
"Unplug or Eject Hardware" in the system tray to stop the drive before
disconnecting it. Now, A: is always there; the USB floppy drive shows up
and works as B: when I connect it. If I go into Device Manager and
uninstall the floppy disk drive, A: does disappear -- but only until the
next reboot.

I'm not sure when this began. It may have been when one of my kids used
the USB floppy and simply unplugged it without stopping it first. Or it
may have started after I installed SP2. I guess it's not a real problem,
but it concerns me whenever Windows behavior changes unexpectedly [yes, I
know, I shouldn't be surprised when it does ].

Any advice? Thanks.

Your first answer was exactly it. I now remember mucking with some BIOS
settings. My apologies to Windows and my kids.

Thanks for the excellent help.

"WTC" wrote in message
...
Check your Bios settings, make sure floppy drive is disabled. P.S. - You
may also want to disable your floppy controller.

You could have recently flashed your BIOS and then BIOS could have
re-enabled your floppy drive and/or floppy controller.

--
William



"Haney" wrote in message
...
I have a home-built PC that has never had an internal floppy drive
installed. I'm running XP Pro SP2. I have an external USB floppy drive
that I use occasionally. It used to be that drive A: would appear in My
Computer only when I connected the USB drive, and then go away after I
used "Unplug or Eject Hardware" in the system tray to stop the drive
before disconnecting it. Now, A: is always there; the USB floppy drive
shows up and works as B: when I connect it. If I go into Device Manager
and uninstall the floppy disk drive, A: does disappear -- but only until
the next reboot.

I'm not sure when this began. It may have been when one of my kids used
the USB floppy and simply unplugged it without stopping it first. Or it
may have started after I installed SP2. I guess it's not a real problem,
but it concerns me whenever Windows behavior changes unexpectedly [yes, I
know, I shouldn't be surprised when it does ].

Any advice? Thanks.