I have a Dell Dimension series l800r from the year 2000, with Windows ME. It's been very reliable until recently.
No matter how much memory I free up (It has about a 10 gigabyte capacity on the Hard Drive, and I've gotten it to two free gigabytes) my floppy drive just decides to interfere with everything.
See, whenever I start windows, my internal floppy drive will suddenly light up and start spinning, making this noise ("vud-vud-vud-vud-vud-vud-vud, vud-vud-vud-vud-vud-vud-vud" it sounds like) for a couple of minutes before windows loads completely.
Also, whenever I try to play any kind of CD on my CD-ROM drive, first windows will freeze up for a moment, and then the floppy drive will light up and start spinning for what seems like an eternity before the CD-ROM drive finally fires up.
It's become a real annoyance. I've defragmented my hard drive, run at least a thousand virus scans and spyware scans, and nothing can seem to stop my floppy drive from doing this. Is there anyway that I can go into my system and just de-activate this drive for the time being? I really don't need it for anything now that I have my external zip drive.
No matter how much memory I free up (It has about a 10 gigabyte capacity on the Hard Drive, and I've gotten it to two free gigabytes) my floppy drive just decides to interfere with everything.
See, whenever I start windows, my internal floppy drive will suddenly light up and start spinning, making this noise ("vud-vud-vud-vud-vud-vud-vud, vud-vud-vud-vud-vud-vud-vud" it sounds like) for a couple of minutes before windows loads completely.
Also, whenever I try to play any kind of CD on my CD-ROM drive, first windows will freeze up for a moment, and then the floppy drive will light up and start spinning for what seems like an eternity before the CD-ROM drive finally fires up.
It's become a real annoyance. I've defragmented my hard drive, run at least a thousand virus scans and spyware scans, and nothing can seem to stop my floppy drive from doing this. Is there anyway that I can go into my system and just de-activate this drive for the time being? I really don't need it for anything now that I have my external zip drive.