Mystery Drive Listed

[Turkbear]

Hi,
My system thinks it has a Local Disk Q that is inaccessable by users or administrators - I can view its properties ( 0 used space,0 free space). Is this a W7 thing? Maybe the Shadow Image drive?





To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[vacunita]

Depending the manufacturer, it could be a restore partition, they are usually hidden by default.

Win 7 uses a swap partition as well , but It usually has size and usage values as opposed to being 0.

----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.

http://behindtheweb.blogspot.com/

 

[linney]

Have a look in here and see if a "Q" is mentioned. Perhaps a USB or Camera or similar has grabbed "Q"?

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

Change or Delete System Drive Letter via Registry to Remove Conflict USB or FireWire Drive Letter

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/...remove-conflict-usb-or-firewire-drive-letter/

See if this program offers any help if it is a faulty listing of any USB drive.

USBDeview

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
Thanks all,
The registry shows Q (and a V, which does not appear in Windows Explorer) drives as Dos devices ( as well as showing the more cryptic \\??\volume\.... identifiers)





To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[BadBigBen]

perhaps you have a multicard reader that is going haywire?

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
could be, but the hardware panel of the drives shows the correct number of devices ( 4 card, 2 DVD, 1 System - Volume 0, and a driver for my external Iomega USB drive ( which apparently uses a Toshiba driver).

The card readers do not show in the drive listings in explorer unless there is a device in them and then they are identified as cards not a local disk.
Interestingly ( at least to me) is that when I connect a USB stick drive it shows as drive K - I have, until then, Csystem) D: E: (both DVDs),and J: - the Iomega.








To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[linney]

If after backing up the Registry Key, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices you then deleted all the Values except those letters for your actual physical hard drives and CD/DVD, include in the deletion those starting with \??\Volume, so that you are only left with the hard drives and CD/DVD being listed in there.

Reboot and see if it makes any difference, if none, you can restore the backed up key.

 

[BadBigBen]

you could also try this...

in the RUN BOX (or a CLI window aka DOS-BOX) enter the following command:

MOUNTVOL Q: /D

hit enter, and your Q-Ghost should disappear!


Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[BadBigBen]

but before you do the above, download the following file

http://www.uwe-sieber.de/files/usbdlm.zip

Unzip and execute the ListUsbDrives_To_Notepad.cmd file...

It starts the ListUsbDrive.exe which is a console application and redirects its output into a temporary file and opens this in the Windows Notepad. Copy the information about drives Q: and post it here.

Source: Uwe Sieber (himself)over @ Vistaheads

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
Thanks all - I will be away from the system for a couple of days but will try the ideas when I return.





To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
I did get a chance to run the USB drive listing from BigBadBen ( Thanks) and got this about Q:

ountPoint = Q:\
Volume Label = ---
Volume Size = not tested
Volume Serial = ---
Volume Name = \\?\Volume{37d5f702-092d-11e0-9e62-a4badbf17b41}\
Bus Type = unknown
Drive Type = fixed
Device Types = VirtualDrive
Volume DosDevName = \Device\SftVol

To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
OK, a little dyslexic this morning:
Not BigBadBen but BadBigBen



To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[flyboytim]

It is the Microsoft Office 2010 Starter (Click-to-run) virtual drive. PITA.

To remove:

http://www.ikkerus.net/windows/office/howto-remove-microsoft-office-2010-click-2-run

http://www.fxxxingcomputers.co.uk

 

[BadBigBen]

No big thing there Turkbear, about the name mixup...

if you do not have O2010Starter as mentioned by Flyboytim, then check your BIOS for a Virtual-Drive setting and disable that there...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[flyboytim]

It is like a virus that gets transferred via USB drives - you don't need to have MSO2010C2R yourself - just contact with a USB drive that had been used to transfer documents from such a machine - like a Win 7 Starter netbook or an OEM Home Basic with the C2R.

The usb drive/sd-card has an autorun.inf file, Office.exe about 5MB, a hidden folder called virtual applications and a folder called TravelDocuments.

Avoid like the plague.

http://www.fxxxingcomputers.co.uk

 

[Turkbear]

Thanks all...


I consider this solved...

( I am leaving the Q there since it has caused no issues in the year os so I have had Office 2010 installed and I was just curious..)



To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."