Ryan Satcher

A: Unfortunately, there's no one cause or cure for this common annoyance. But here are a few potential remedies.

At some point, you may have told Windows to check for something on the A: driveùand never told it to stop looking. Correcting this is easy: The next time Windows accesses your floppy drive, pop a disk into the drive. Double-click the icon for drive A:. Then close the window, double-click on the C: icon, and remove the floppy disk.

Your anti-virus software may be configured to scan drive A: automatically, whether there is a disk in the drive or not. To check Norton AntiVirus, for example, click the Options button. On the Scanner tab, click the Advanced button. Uncheck All removable drives. Click OK twice.

Another possibility: Something on your recent documents list makes Windows check A:. Don't bother to track down the perpetratorùjust wipe out everything in that folder (you won't lose any data). To do this, right-click the taskbar, select Properties, click the Start Menu Programs tab, click Clear in the 'Documents menu' box, and then click OK.

Desktop shortcuts pointing to a file or program on A: can also trigger this pointless access. The fix: Select Desktop in Windows Explorer, and select StartòFindòFiles or Folders. In the Named field, enter *.lnk, *.pif. Then, for the Containing Text field, enter a: and click Find Now. Delete all of the shortcuts you find, or at least move them either off of the Explorer Desktop or out of the Start menu.

If you use Microsoft Office 97, the FindFast utility could be causing the problem. To find out, select StartòSettingsòControl Panel, and then double-click the FindFast icon. Once the applet is up, see whether drive A: is on the list of indexes. If it is, highlight it and select IndexòDelete Index. Click OK twice, and then close FindFast and the Control Panel.