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???