Hello, This just started happening somewhat recently (but system restore, etc. didn't fix), but it seems like my 3 1/2" drive keeps accessing itself when it shouldn't. There's no disk in there, it accesses (somewhat loudly), at startup, shut down, and keeps accessing while using either my CD-rom, or my CD-RW. That's the part that makes me nervous. I was, at one time while this was happening, getting some Invalid Page Fault errors or something similar, and I deleted my cd-rom, cd-rw, and floppy drivers from safe mode in device manaageger). I no longer get the page fault errors since then, but the drive keeps accessing when it shouldn't... I do keep up with my Norton antivirus, so I don't think I have a virus... any ideas? I've tried reseating cables within the tower as well. Thanks much, Brian

You might want to see if some program running in the background is tring to read from or read to the floppy drive, but that's a long shot. You ruled out everything else that could cause the floppy drive to access randomly. It looks like the floppy drive itself is defective.

I hope you don't have a name brand computer like Compaq,Dell,Gateway or E-Machines. They are Propritary.Floppy drives cost around $20.00.But the namebrand companys probaly cost twice as much.I had a compaq i needed a new Floppy drive i got a $20.00 mitsumi drive in it it wasn't easy but i did it.

Were you recently moving the wires inside the comp? If you put the connector on the back of the floppy drive on backwards the light stays on...not sure if this is accesing issue or not?

Thanks for the replies guys... i know it's not a backwards cable... the drive light isn't CONSTANTLY lit... it lights at startup and shut down, and most of the times that the cd rom drives get accessed... that's why i think it may be more drive controller related as opposed to the drive itself... of course... drive controllers are intergrated on the motherboard nowadays, aren't they? If anyone has any other suggesetions, I'd love to hear them... it's definitely not totally random accesses, like I said, it seems to access the floppy when it accesses the cd-roms... I've went through all my startup programs in msconfig, and I only have my necessities running there... so I don't think I have some stange memory resident program accessing the drive either... Thanks again, Brian

DO you use any antivirus software? That can check the floppy at startup & shutdown. Did you use the floppy recently? Sometimes there will be a shortcut under documents off the start button that can access the floppy...just a couple of things to look for