Windows Forum

Ask something
Discussion Locked

W2000 floppy issues

0 helpful
1 reply

by mjackson

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.
Some of our Windows 2000 machines seem to have a problem releasing previous processes to allow for new process when using the floppy drive. For example: If a user is formatting floppies, the first formats with no error, but when attempting to format a second floppy, PC returns a message that says A: is being used by another program. Any ideas for a fix? This also happens at times when trying to access or save files to A: Thanks. :)

1 reply

by curlergirl

You seem to have stumbled on one of the quirks of Win2K - actually, it started in WinNT. That is, that if Explorer is focussed on the A: drive and you try to format a floppy (even from the same window), it sees the drive as being "used by another process". This most often happens when you have been browsing the diskette in the drive to see if there's anything on it that you need to save and then try to format it while you're still browsing it - in other words, you are stil displaying the listof files on the drive in the right-hand pane in Explorer. Try making sure that you focus your Explorer window on another drive (i.e., click the C: drive first) before you try to format the floppy. Then right click on the A: drive and select the Format option. This should work OK. Hope this helps!

This discussion is closed to new replies.