Game launcher continously trying to access my floppy drive ? Won't install without it

Andromalius

Andromalius
Don't laugh, I played Elite with this:

12.jpg
 

Switchback

S
OP,

If the machine is complaining about drive A being open, then there's some serious confusion on your machine; only the CD drives will complain about the drive being open. I'd probably type "computer management" in your Start --> Search box and under Storage -> Disk Management, check what's actually assigned to A:.... Then I'd check your installer path to make sure you're not trying to write to A:

Good luck!
 

Cmdr Andy B

Cmdr Andy B
Switchback said:
OP,

If the machine is complaining about drive A being open, then there's some serious confusion on your machine; only the CD drives will complain about the drive being open. I'd probably type "computer management" in your Start --> Search box and under Storage -> Disk Management, check what's actually assigned to A:.... Then I'd check your installer path to make sure you're not trying to write to A:

Good luck!
Click to expand...

another workaround may be to reassign the drive letter of the floppy to Z as it looks to me like ED is trying to access the first drive it finds.
 

Switchback

S
AndyB(EDB50) said:
another workaround may be to reassign the drive letter of the floppy to Z as it looks to me like ED is trying to access the first drive it finds.
Click to expand...

That makes perfect sense, is your CD assigned to drive A? As A and B drives aren't used anymore (At the moment on PC's) the installer might be trying to take the first logical path to installation and finding an A: drive, likely in this case, to have been assigned to a CD drive.. if that's even possible..
 

tsh

T
I vaguely remember this being reported at alpha - can't remember if there was a workaround, but it needs to be ticketed...
 

glynie

glynie
I also have a 1.44mb floppy A: in my machine.

Like you, I noticed this drive-read sound while installing. However it didn't cause any problems...I figured it was ridiculous but it installed no problem. Let me know if I can do any testing for you or be of any help.
 
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Googol

Googol
chrisell said:
Thanks for the first bit of constructive help. Interestingly in the appdata/local there was "Frontier_Developments", "Frontier Developments" and "Frontier-Developments"
I deleted all three, deleted the program files folder rebooted and did a clean install.
Now I don't have as many errors (they're still popping up though - about the A: drive bay door) but my download speed is now stuck at 0Mb/s. At least before it was downloading something, now it's downloading nothing. I've opened a support ticket.

Ugh.

All the pleasure of having been on the beta program was just undone by a broken release installer :(
It es me off because I would expect this from someone like Electronic Arts, but having gone all the way through from the first kickstarter, through all the betas to the release without a single real problem, to get to today and find I can't even install the release is kick in balls.
Click to expand...

Observation, probably not helpful, but I just checked my appdata directory and I have two FD directories in it, one with a space and one with an underline between Frontier and Developments. The one I don't have is the one you list with a hyphen.
 

chrisell

C
Space said:
OP, what do you mean by "floppy drive"? Do you mean hard drive or do you have a computer with insanely outdated memory hardware? Please use proper vocabulary if looking for help. And if you are actually using floppy disks, you should really get a HDD or SSD.
Click to expand...

I mean a 3.5" floppy drive. As in the A: Drive. My PC still has one because I need to support legacy PCs in my day job.
It has nothing to do with the game but for whatever reason the installer seems to be trying to access it. So I've since disabled it in the bios, unplugged the power and IDE cable inside the box, run full virus scans with Avast and Trend Housecall and my machine is clean as a whistle. Yet still the installer keeps popping up windows telling me "edlaunch.exe - the a: drive door is open"

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Windsaw said:
Out of curiosity I installed ED and have encountered the same problem as the OP.

During installation of ED my floppy was constantly accessed. I stuffed an empty floppy disk into it so that it at least stayed relatively quiet.

Now that ED is installed, I get the following behaviour:

When the launcher is started, occasionally the floppy is accessed.
When I start the game, the floppy stays quiet, even though the launcher is still open in the background.

@OP: Did you create a ticket?
If not I will do it.

PS: I have both a 3'5 and a 5'25 floppy built in my computer. However, the BIOS supports only one so only the 3'5 is plugged in right now.
Click to expand...

Thank you!
Yes - I've created a ticket (00000009257)
 

chrisell

C
For those curious what this looks like : https://www.dropbox.com/s/raahcysfhwdt36o/elitedangerousinstallerproblem.mp4?dl=0
Every time it accesses the floppy drive, the download rate drops to zero. It never gets a chance to get up to any decent speed (it never even gets close to the full speed of my 40Mbps connection) because it's just machine-gunning the floppy drive the whole time.

To re-iterate, if I unplug the drive and turn off legacy IDE support in the BIOS, every 'click' of the drive you see here is instead replaced with an error window telling me "edlaunch.exe : cannot continue, A: drive bay door is open - close door to continue".
Machine scanned with Avast (paid version) and Trend Micro Housecall - all clean - no viruses or malware.

Still not been able to get the game installed and no reply to the support ticket I put in on friday :( (for reference, to get to this stage in the install my PC has been running the installer continuously for 72 hours or more now).
 
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natraq

N
Have you tried to disable the floppy device in the Device Manager? To do so hit start, enter devmgmt.msc in the search box, look for the floppy device and disable it (properties => driver)
 

nexxo

N
chrisell said:
I mean a 3.5" floppy drive. As in the A: Drive. My PC still has one because I need to support legacy PCs in my day job.
It has nothing to do with the game but for whatever reason the installer seems to be trying to access it. So I've since disabled it in the bios, unplugged the power and IDE cable inside the box, run full virus scans with Avast and Trend Housecall and my machine is clean as a whistle. Yet still the installer keeps popping up windows telling me "edlaunch.exe - the a: drive door is open"

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Thank you!
Yes - I've created a ticket (00000009257)
Click to expand...

Note that when you disable a floppy drive in BIOS and physically unplug it, the Windows driver may still be in place. Remove it in Device Manager.
 

CloakedAlien

C
I just started to install myself and I've got the same issue. System is malware-free afaik (Windows 8.1 defender + MBAM Pro). Created ticket, never had any issues in other programs.

Disabled the floppy in device manager during install and it's stopped chugging.

Why do I even have a floppy? Because I want to and I've got lots of equipment that uses them ^^
And as you know you can't use "floimg" to write Atari-disks using an external floppy drive, so there! *hmpf*
 

Quenaelin

Quenaelin
I had to register to forums to be able to answer this, I have exactly same problem with floppy drive, maybe this is some old code programmed to launcher, it really brings good gaming memories from those days when playing games with Amiga. C-64 Elite wasn't making so much noise on C-tape, but turbo tape and turbo disk were making lot of noise. Floppy noise doesn't bother me, it only happens during updates, but maybe my wife can't sleep so good, because I usually play at night.
 
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