Partitions suddenly appeared.

My Dell computer, using Win XP-Pro, had the usual drives A,C,D,E,&F. D&E are CD Roms, F was my memory stick (when installed). I just noticed I now have F&G as "Storage Volumes" and my memory stick is now drive H. These storage devices have many files, none of which seem to be also on drive C. I never created any partitions on C, Dell Help Chat seems to think they are coming from my USB devices, which are my HP printer and my Netgear Router/Speedstream DSL modem. Does anyone know (1) where they came from? (2) can I safely remove these partitions and their files. I assumed this a software problem but it could be hardware as well. I posted this issue on "Software Forums" but receiven no replies.

 

Is there any recollection of what you might have been doing RIGHT before you noticed the new drive letters?? Like maybe you just installed a new driver, etc.!!

What does it say the drives are in "My Computer"?

Roger

 

Go to Start->Run->"diskmgmt.msc" This should tell you some more information about the drives. You could try posting a picture here of what they look like.

 

Well, if you have kids that use "your" computer, probably they got a game upgrade, thats what I found about that here at home; that gave some problems specially when I Am trying to use Nero, because those drives -virtual drives- are detected as a "real" ones and of course they do not record anything! Other than that, do not do any harm, only work when the aplication that created them are being used. My 2 cents.