MS Excel problem with Floppy Drive [RESOLVED]

I have just recently begun to have a slight problem when using Microsoft Excel 2003 on my Windows XP Pro machine. I have used it steadily for quite a long time with no problems but suddenly it tries to read the floppy drive any time I click a cell or select a range of cells or try to scroll the data. Seemingly any time data would be checked or accessed; it doesn't try to read the floppy when dialog boxes or menu functions are used.

There doesn't appear to be any sacrifice to performance or the program use in general, just the nuisance of hearing the drive buzz every time I click a cell.

• I have run the repair office 2003 function from the Office CD.

• I have removed the Excel component and then reinstalled it.

• I have done a full system scan using Norton AV 2005 with recent virus defs.

• I have even unplugged the floppy just to see what happens and it obviously doesn't buzz but the program will pause for 5-10 seconds before it resumes only to pause again the next time i click a cell.

For what I know to do, I have done basically everything short of Fully removing MS Office and then reinstalling it...which I would do assuming my emails and contacts wouldn't be dropped from Outlook after I reinstall.

Does anybody know anything at all about this or heard of anything like this. It does this floppy read thing for any and all excel files, even a newly created blank one.

I am at a loss.

Thanks!

Update: I have completely uninstalled and reinstalled Office 2003...no luck.
Then I swapped the floppy out with one that I know is in good order in the hopes that it was the drive but I get the same result with the different drive. Could this be a windows glitch developed over time or hopefully not a motherboard/other hardware issue. Any ideas or advice would still be appreciated. I'd hate to have to reformat :confused:

It sounds like you probably, once upon a time, used the Excel program in conjuction with the floppy and now excel is trying to reference the floppy continually. My guess would be a bad registry entry. Here is my humble suggestion of the order in which to perform tasks:


1.) If you have a good registry program, try running it and see if it finds and removes the entry (you can probably get a free trial for Registry Mechanic or similar)

2.) Manually search the Office section of the registry for any reference to the floppy drive and remove it.

3.) Restore your system back to a date when you know all was well.

4.) Otherwise, if it is that bothersome, a new OS install would be necessary.


Only other thing I can think of would be if you happen to be running Outlook at the same time you are running Excel. Outlook has a setting for Journaling which is tied to the various Office Components. If it somehow got turned on then Outlook could suffer from trying to access the floppy, however, it sounds like it is certainly Excel that is trying to access the floppy.

Good Luck

Thanks for the reply,

I tried running Norton WinDoctor to fix the registry but to no avail...in fact it only found 2 errors which were obviously unrelated. I then downloaded Registry Mechanic's trial version but it only finds errors and won't fix them until I pay :rolleyes: Registry Mechanic finds hundreds of errors when Norton finds virtually none... so either Norton is inadequate or Registry Mechanic is out for a buck from those of us who don't read registry Greek by creating the appearance of problems.

Anyhow, I also poked around the registry and searched for keys that had a: or a:\ in the data field under the Microsoft and office folders and didn't find anything useful as far as I could tell. I dont know what I'm doing in there anyways so I wouldn't want to start tampering with registry keys unless I had an exact instruction on what to do.

One other symptom I have just noticed is that when i choose to save a file from any Microsoft Office program and I click the drop down box that shows the drives and directories, it pauses for almost a minute before the box responds and finally drops down. Alternatively if I simply hit the up one level directory button it hops up a level from the working directory no problem...this leads me to think that Office in general is having trouble with my floppy drive. No other non-office programs have this problem with the explorer drop down list in the save or open dialog box. I appreciate your help. Any further help is extremely appreciated but I am worrisome that this is leading to a reformat adventure :sick:

Quote:

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I click the drop down box that shows the drives and directories, it pauses for almost a minute

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This is a normal symptom of Windows not being able to read from a drive (typically a floppy, CD/DVD, or network drive), and short of removing the problem drive from your system there is not much you can do.

One possible fix for the Excel issue, go to the options (Tools - Options) and select the General tab. There are a couple of folders listed here, make sure that both are on your hard-drive, or blank.

Another potential cause is an add-in which has been installed from the floppy drive, but I don't know how you would check this, or fix it.

Do you have any macros in the file? Do you have automatic backups turned on?
Where are the default folders? I haven't experienced this problem, but it may be something that can be turned off.

But it also happens on new blank workbooks so if it could be an add-in like suggested. Go to Tools > Add-Ins and uncheck all and click Ok. Test and make sure it was not an Add-In.

The only other option that contains a file path is the autorecover option but its default is set to backup every 10 minutes and not every data change.

Maybe a format would be in order if its really bothersome. ;)

dglienna, you got it. Apparently what happened was someone came in the office with an older version of a spreadsheet than the one I had. Mine had a macro that I made which I added to the spreadsheet on his floppy. This macro is global across all of my Excel workbooks and run from a custom button. This button was referencing the other guy's workbook rather than the one it should be referencing. The problem has been repaired.

Thanks again everyone for your feedback. VBForums rocks, every problem I've ever posted in here has been solved.

I thought it would be something simple.