PC keeps checking A drive before downloads.

[Keith777]

Hi my pc keeps checking my A drive, multiple times in a row, every time i try to download something to my C; drive. I'm always choseing a folder on my C drive of course. It checks and then pauses, rechecks and pauses, eventually a connection to the C drive gets through and the download starts. But sometimes if it checks the A drive several times in a row the download will start to C drive and then another check for the a drive interupts, and my Firfox downlaod window says the downlaod was finshed almost as soon as it started. It also checks the A drive once the downlaod finishes.

This has been going on for so long i can't remember what could have caused it. I can't be sure, but it MAY have been after i created and tested an emergency boot disk, when considering reformating my hard drive. Or it may have been after i downlaoded something off the net directly to a floppy.

Whatever the case there seems to be some wires crossed somewhere. Any ideas?

Keith Win98SE

 

[ski]

See if clearing the Documents menu helps:
-Right click on an open area of the taskbar at the bottom of the Desktop
-Click Properties
-Click the Start Menu Programs tab
-Click Clear
-Click OK

 

[Keith777]

Hi, i cleared the document list from the Start Menue, and it did not make any difference.

Keith

 

[Diancecht]

Maybe one of these apply to you:

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article07-037

http://groups.google.es/group/micro...bf6a8e5541e/e9fb4d66ad805287#e9fb4d66ad805287

Cheers,
Dian

 

[Keith777]

I tried ever thing in Diancatch's first link:

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article07-037

(the second link has same advice) Nothing i tried worked and the problem still happens. I will list what i did as briefly as i can.


1. Went into the registry and deleted all entries except "default" under: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Explorer\ RunMRU\.

2. Searched for and found no .pif files

3. Was told to delete "LocalLoadHigh=1" from my MSDOS.SYS file
, open file but could not find that entry.

4. Went into registry and looked for "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/CLSID" . Was told to find "references to OCX's or DLL's referenced on the floppy." Have no idea what that is supoossed to look like, but i didn't see any 'OCX' or 'DLL' . allthough i did find a second "CLSID" folder under "CLSID" wich i thought was odd. Is that normal?

But i did find a folder called "Custom shell context extension" under "CLSID". Is this a universally essential folder? I ask because the tech link also mentions the HiJack program and advises: turning off "Enable HiJack shell extensions" in the HiJack Control Panel.
Could these two be releated? Or would deleting the "Custom Shell" folder in CLSID no difference?

I thought they meant "Hijack this" wich doesn't give me the option to turn off that they describe.

5. Finally, I used the device manager to remove the floppy and rebooted, alowing the system to re-install it. And it didn't work. I am still getting tons of A drive checks during downloads only.


The only new info i have that might help is that I switched back from Firefox to IE, and when trying to download i get this pop-up window " file could not be written to the cache" . And it doesn't even download!! Even worse than firefox.

Any more advice or have I hit a dead end?

Keith

 

[Diancecht]

Maybe introducing a floppy lets you work normally.

Cheers,
Dian

 

[Lemon13]

what antivirus software are u running?

 

[Keith777]

I'm running norton anti-virus v5.0 and Zone Alarm fire wall.
It's a whole other problem but for some reason Norton has been unable to update itslef for about a year , i have now idea what's up,During the "Live update" box it stops responding and freezes during the "retrieving information" part. Could that be realted? Dunno

And to Dian, what do you mean by introducing a floppy? Like put a floppy in the drive and see if it stops the problem?

Ok, i just tried it. It checked for a floppy once and then stoped. I tired a bunch of other donwloads and the floppy checks seem to have stopped. But the wierd thing is , all the odd stalling that happend two or three times before a download began are still there! only now the checks of the floppy are . As soon as i take the floppy out of the drive it starts again, so it doesn't seem to fix the problem, just mask some of the symptoms.


Keith

 

[Lemon13]

not sure exactly where it is in norton, but theres a checkbox under the scan options i.e "check/protect removable drives or so...", try to uncheck this and see if it helps.
other advice, 1 year no av-updates, opt. for a free antivirus (i.e

http://www.avira.com/en/download/index.html),

and get rid of norton ;-)

 

[Keith777]

Norton's "check removable drives" was not checked. Any other ideas anyone?

oh, and LEMON13if I do get rid of Norton, what hapens to all those "quarantined" virus files? Do they need to be 'repaired'? I wouldn't be letting a million viruses loose all over would I?


Thread sumary:

A drive still being checked several times before download unless there's a disk in there. Even with disk, the PC still stalls several times before download starts where the A drive checks used to be. So something is still boing on.

Keith

 

[Lemon13]

nope, just delete them if u cant repair

if u have those million viruses on the hdd, get a boot cd with an UP 2 DATE (definitions)virus scanner, boot from it and clean up ur pc. the checking might be that u have a boot-virus

i recommend do a fresh install, and that time install a up2date antivirus and keep it up2date

 

[OldDaveW]

There is a small Floppy Based appplication called Bug Hunt that you might try. I would also get rid of Norton but it is as hard to get rid of as a case eczema. You need a first rate Registry Cleaner such as Fegistry Fix or XP Repair Pro. As an AV replacement you might try the free editions of AvastAV or AVG.

 

[OldDaveW]

Please let me make a correction on my previous post. The DOS application is BugHunter and can be downloaded from
http:/

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/bughunter.html.

Sorry about that.[Blush]