When I shutdown or open up my system it tries to access the A floppy disc drive - it makes a 'shuddering' noise - I have highlighted the A drive symbol in windows explorer but that did not help.
Brian.

Right click on 'My Computer', click Properties/Performance/File System/Floppy Disk, uncheck the box for 'Search For New Floppy Disk Drives Each Time Your Computer Starts', click OK/OK.
If the FD still make noise at startup, the go into BIOS, look for 'Boot Sequence' or similar, and either select your C drive to boot before the A drive or 'C Only'. And remember to go back into BIOS to reselect the A drive to boot before the C drive if you need to boot from a floppy disk.

Thank you for your prompt and helpful reply.
Brian.

You're welcome, Brian.