Need Help With Drive.

Hey Guys & Gals,

I have a problem and can't figure it out.

So I 7 drives on my system and they are fine.
But for the past 2 days I have had another drive show up in my computer.
I can't access the drive and have no idea where it came from.

It is only 96mb has 67.6mb free and says fat32.
I have checked and rechecked and can find nothing.

Can anyone give me any ideas of how to get rid of this drive?
It is not listed in Computer Managment as a drive.

I am running Windows 8.1 with kaspersky Virus protection as well as Malwarebytes (Subscription).
All scans show nothing.

Please let me know.
Thanks in advance
Fred

 

Hey Guys,

Well I think I found the issue.
As soon as i unplugged the Steam wireless dongle the drive Z vanished.
I will see if the issue shows up again.

Thanks
Fred

 

Hey Guys,

Well I thought my issue was fixed but I guess not as i again have the extra drive Z.
It does not show up in Computer Management and I cant access it.
It says "Local Disk Z" and is "Fat32" with "67.6MB out of 96.0MB) so its small.
Right clicking it and showing properties does not tell me anything so I cant figure out where the drive came from.

So any suggestions/help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Fred

 

Hey,

Here is a screen shot so you can see drive is in one window and not the other.


Thanks
Fred

 

Do you have any devices plugged into a USB port?

Right-click the drive, click Properties, click Hardware.
Does it have a name?

 

Hello Eldon,

I have unplugged all my usb devices besides my keyboard and mouse and did a restart just to be sure.
But the z: drive was still there when I logged back into windows.

As for right clicking the drive and choosing properties that's where it gets interesting.
But I will show you so you can see these pictures are all my current drives and I can't tell anything from the properties.
I am attaching several of my drives including the z: drive I can't access.



These are only a few of my drives as you can see from left side of each image.
And nothing I try tells me or shows me where z: drive came from.

Hope you can decipher it as it is beyond me knowledge.
Thanks in advance
Fred

 

GrenParaPrivate E-2

You said--------
Well I think I found the issue.
As soon as i unplugged the Steam wireless dongle the drive Z vanished.

I have seen this happen when a dongle/usb has not been detached properly- If it was reading/writing to it, when it was removed.
To test, I would suggest that you put that Steam wireless dongle back in, and let it be recognised, then use the safely remove icon and wait until it says it is safe to do so, as you probably thought you did before. It could be just that it needs to see it again, to properly release it.
Worth a try ?

 

Your screenshots are to small.
It looks like Local Disk (Z is not showing when you select Properties.
What happens when you right-click the phantom drive? Do you have an Open option?

PS I think baklogic might have the answer.

 

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the help and suggestions.

I tried what Baklogic suggested and no changes i even tried restarts between the steps and with the restarts.

As for what Eldon said, yes I get an open option and this is what happens.

"
Z:\

You don't currently have permission to access this folder.
Click Continue to permanently get access to this folder.
When I press Continue I get this message.

Z:\
You have been denied permission to access this folder.
To gain access to this folder you will need to use the security tab.

Then only close button is there."

I have tried going to the security tab but nothing there helps and i have tried lots.

I should add the even in the task manager under performance tab the z: drive is not listed either.
I checked in a program I have and i figured out part of the issue.
The drive z: is on my drive c: Acronis Drive Monitor shows me all my drives and c: and z: are together.
Its almost like a hidden partition or something thou i cant access it and its small.


In the Computer Management windows under storage, Disk Managment I dont see z: drive.
But drive c: is showing 3 partitions which makes a bit of sense to me.

So 300mb is a recovery partition, then there is 476gb is Windows Os/primary boot drive.
the 3rd partition says 100mb Healthy EFI System Partition.
So that matches the size of the z: drive.

But I have no idea what Healthy EFI system Partition Means or why it only started showing recently.


Do you have any idea on it.

Thanks in advance
Fred

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFI_system_partition
I would ignore it, myself, from what I have read around the web. Apparently it can appear like this with UEFI/EFI systems, as against the older bios setups, and my knowledge on this is a little sparse, but it seems it can disable/enable booting from dvd on startup.
Someone else may have more experience, and be able to help you more
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFI_system_partition

From https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd799232(v=ws.10-).aspx

An EFI System Partition (ESP)

Each bootable drive must contain an ESP. The computer boots to this partition.

For Advanced Format Generation One (4-KB-per-sector) drives, the minimum size of this partition is 260 MB.

For earlier 512-byte-per-sector drives, the minimum size of this partition is 100MB.

 

Hello Baklogic,

Thanks for your help.

I guess I will ignore it since it does no harm.
Thanks again for all the help.
Have a great day and upcoming Holiday Season.
Fred