(unused) floppy drive kernel errors

[QuackHacker at hotpop.com]

Tim [ignored_mailbox at yahoo.com.au] wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Almost every day I see the following warning in the logwatch mail:
> 
> >  --------------------- Kernel Begin ------------------------ 
> >  WARNING:  Kernel Errors Present
> >     end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector ...:  1 Time(s) 
> >  ---------------------- Kernel End -------------------------
> 
> Which doesn't make any sense.  Yes, I have a floppy drive.  But, I don't
> use it.  There's no disk in the drive.  And, as far as I'm aware, it
> does actually work, fine.  Not that I've got a disk to test it with, at
> the moment.
> 
> Does anyone else get the same thing?
> 
> Looking through /var/log/messages, I see entries like these:
> 
> # grep fd0 /var/log/messages.1
> 
> Aug 21 09:14:24 localhost kernel: Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
> Aug 22 15:00:45 localhost kernel: Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
> Aug 22 17:42:59 localhost kernel: Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
> Aug 23 11:17:07 localhost kernel: Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
> Aug 23 11:34:25 localhost kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
> Aug 23 16:38:39 localhost kernel: Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
> Aug 23 18:30:21 localhost kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
> Aug 24 10:48:32 localhost kernel: Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
> Aug 24 16:25:01 localhost kernel: Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
> Aug 25 12:52:28 localhost kernel: Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
> Aug 25 13:25:53 localhost kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
> Aug 25 20:52:10 localhost kernel: Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
> Aug 26 13:37:40 localhost kernel: Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
> 
I get the message when a kernel is installed and the floppy drive is
empty.  But on subsequent days my logs do not show I/O errors.