Avast! 5 Pro and Floppy Drive Seek!?!?!?!?! (SOLVED:D:D:D:D)

[Savoir]

No advice ...... no replies ...... and it's still not fixed in the new program update (v. 5.0.545)

[Tekie]

  Are you starting to feel as if you're being ignored? I know I am.

[Savoir]

Yeah  ..... a lot of obfuscation and disregard .... not very encouraging !!!

[doktornotor]

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).

[Hermite15]

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

[Savoir]

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).

@doktornotor

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=59321.0
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=56006.0
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=58865.0
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=58902.0
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=58852.0
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=54888.0

There are a few others having this same problem ....

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

@Logos

    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 still have the original problem.

    So what gives?  Did the developers err again ……. Or did my computer suddenly decide to let me know that my floppy drive was empty???

[doktornotor]

@doktornotor

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=59321.0
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=56006.0
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=58865.0
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=58902.0
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=58852.0
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=54888.0

There are a few others having this same problem ....

Yeah, the first post:

Now though, after trying again, I have found out that Skype 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.

[Shyly]

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.   



WinXP SP3
3G Ram
SAS on demand
SpywareBlaster

[Savoir]

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:
 
1. Accessing Explorer with the floppy drive enabled
2. 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???

[doktornotor]

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. 

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.

[Hermite15]

only thing I can tell is when a couple of years ago I was running Avast 4 on XP, and there was a floppy drive there too the drive was being accessed at boot time, generally during the login phase, I didn't care that much as I had that too with AVG before, and I could deactivate it I think if I wanted to...I can't test that now as that PC doesn't exist anymore, and my current system doesn't have a floppy drive. Doesn't un-checking the option for checking floppies change anything in the file system shield settings? (I suppose it doesn't otherwise this thread wouldn't have been started...).

[Savoir]

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.

   No harm, no foul.  Your point is well taken; on the other hand, we’re not getting much of a response from the developers about the problem either.  Most of the threads concerning this issue have died a quite death with very few serious suggestions on how we might resolve it. 

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.

    Sorry you think I misunderstood your reference to Avira, it’s just that I didn’t bring them up in any of my posts; thus the question as to why you did.
I’ll take your word for it that they have some of the same issue(s) as I have no interest in their product(s) or problems what so ever.
   I realize that this is not a problem that stops the software from being effective and that the developers apparently have quite a few other problems to resolve but it does bother others so, lets stop the irrelevant rhetoric and concentrate on a resolution.

@Logos

    I too ran 4.8 on XP for quite a while, however, I had no floppy access at boot or while trying to open Explorer like I do after upgrading to Avast 5 Pro. I believe this was due to the fact that could ‘deactivate’ it in 4.8.
I have added my floppy drive to every Exclusion list I could find in Avast 5 with no results.

[doktornotor]

only thing I can tell is when a couple of years ago I was running Avast 4 on XP, and there was a floppy drive there too the drive was being accessed at boot time, generally during the login phase

Well, I recall those old BIOSes having something like "Report no FDD for Win95" kind of option... IIRC it prevented Windows from re-detecting the FDD on every reboot.

[YoKenny]

@Savoir

I see that you now have more than 20 posts which will permit you to update your profile to include signature information.

Go to PROFILE then Modify Profile then Forum Profile Information then Signature: and put information about your system just like my signature about your system just like my signature so that the helpers can offer pertinent advice.

On my XP Pro system I see that the floppy drive is accessed with Winows Explorer but as there is no diskette in it and Windows Explorer opens fine.

[Savoir]

@Savoir
I see that you now have more than 20 posts which will permit you to update your profile to include signature information.

Happy??

On my XP Pro system I see that the floppy drive is accessed with Windows Explorer but as there is no diskette in it and Windows Explorer opens fine.

Explorer opens 'fine' on my machine also ...... after a 5 - 7 second delay while the floppy drive grinds away.