Fixing the Qttask.exe No Disk Error…
Every now and then when I am sitting at my Windows XP system, an annoying error message just pops up out of nowhere. The title bar is a seemingly random four-digit hexadecimal value followed by “qttask.exe - No Disk”. The text of the message says “There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk into drive XX:.” At the bottom is the typical Cancel, Try Again, and Continue buttons.
The most annoying thing is that none of the button choices do anything to actual remove the error. The error message cycles back and forth showing an error message first for drive XX:, then for drive YY:, back and forth, over and over, at least 16 times.
Yes, that’s right — 16 times!!
That’s when I decided to do something about it.
But before I destroyed it, I had to find out more about it.
The qttask.exe program is a simple program that lets Apple’s QuickTime software (often bundled with iTunes) show up in the Windows taskbar. To me, the taskbar only needs to store the system’s volume control and be a place where I get a visual indication when I get mail. To hëll with everything else!
You’ll find solutions all over the ‘net that tell you (1) which registry entry to edit to stop qttask; (2) what option in the Control Panel to set; (3) to deselect the checkbox within the QuickTime software that says to display the control in the toolbar; (4) to remove and reinstall. None of that advice really matters or works. You think simply deselecting the checkbox will actually stop it from running in stealth mode?! Ha! Sooner or later, just like that bad apple MSN Messenger (that uses Microsoft’s own questionable sticky tactics), qttask will also eventually pop back.
The solution: Use the Task Manager to end the qttask process. Rename the qttask.exe file in your QuickTime directory to something else; you can even delete it as it is not used to play or view any QuickTime-associated data. Reboot. Simple!
Thanks for the tip. I named the file to quicktimesucks.exe! The only reason it’s on my computer is because of iTunes and I never would have guessed it.
-Rust.
Hi. The problem is with QuickTime (qttask is that program), and it’s a very silly thing (you wonder how professional programmers do this…): the program keeps a list of recently viewed files. If there happens to be one that was from drive E, then you’re done, no more QuickTime ever.
So, the *complete* solution is to uninstall and reinstall QuickTime, deleting any remaining QuickTime files in between the two things.
(1) The solution is not to uninstall and reinstall QuickTime, because you’ll run into the same problem again if you ever view QT movie files from a CD or DVD.
(2) qttask.exe is only a utility bundled and used with QuickTime; it is not QuickTime itself. It can be safely removed. Removing the file is the *complete* solution.
Richard, I have the same error, but it was originated after I inserted sony flash card into my sony laptop… The title bar says attrib.exe - when I looked for it, I found it in C\WINDOWS\prefetch and in C\WINDOWS\32… Any Idea how to deal with tis one? Thanks a lot for any ideas!