'A' drive has a mind of its on

I may have posted this to the wrong forum earlier this morning, if so - sorry.
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I can usually solve most of my problems, but ... Using XP Pro, my 'A' drive chatters way too often. I have my config set to "Always ask where to download a file". If I choose to download to the Desktop, or to a USB flash drive, etc the 'A' drive begins to run (w/o any floppy in the drive) and sometimes will run for over a minute, then tell me the installed floppy is not formatted and do I want to format it.When I say "No", it begins to run again for , maybe 30 seconds. Or the drive may begin to run all on its own for several seconds at any time of the day (actually, only when I am working at the computer - doesn't do it if the computer is idle). I'm not talking about the Post test, etc during Startup or Shutdown - this drive just starts up on its own at times. I've had it run so long a couple of times that I just stuffed a floppy in it to quite it down (I know this is wrong to do). BTW, if a floppy is in the drive, I can select to download to the Desktop w/o any chatter from the 'A' drive.

Just a moment ago I went to START and opened WordPad - just doing that function the 'A' drive started to work. I then 'Copied' the Clipboard and the 'A' drive chattered some more (maybe 3 seconds).

I do use NAV and MSAntispyware, plus have MS checking for updates - that's it for apps that may be 'checking' the 'A' drive. I use FireFox as my browser. The 'A' drive functions correctly as to read/write of a floppy.

Any suggestions? I've explored all the Properties I can think of to see if any options were checked/unchecked that might cause the drive to be activated. Something must be sending instruction to the 'A' drive??