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Author Topic: more drives show up in My Computer than physically exist  (Read 3003 times)

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rojerd

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    more drives show up in My Computer than physically exist
    « on: February 07, 2009, 11:05:38 PM »
    Hi, I've noticed a quirk in my system.  I'm not sure it's a problem, exactly, but I'm somewhat perplexed by it.

    In My Computer there are two optical drives, a flash drive, and 5 hard disk drives recognized and viewable (ie I can actually open all five).  However, I only have 4 hard disk drives actually loaded in my case.  I have two 80GB Seagates, and 120GB and a 160GB Western Digital drives.  For some reason, there is another drive showing up with the specs: 127GB, 118GB free space.  In the Hardware Device manager under System Information, only the four physical drives are recognized.

    Also, I DO have an external hard drive, but it is only 40GB, and I haven't connected it in at least a year.

    Can anyone offer a suggestion?  I built this system in June of 2006, and to be honest, I can't say when I first noticed this phantom drive.

    I'd really appreciate any insight; thanks for taking the time to consider.

    System specs: AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core 3800+ with 2GB of ram and an nVidia GeForce 7600 GT (256 MB I think) gfx card.  My os is XP pro with sp2.  Plus the aforementioned HDDs.
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    System: Vista SP1; AMD X2 3800+; 2GB of DDR 400 RAM; 80GB Seagate PATA IDE;  Creative SB Audigy 2ZS; + 2 ASUS VH242H LCDs

    foggs



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      Re: more drives show up in My Computer than physically exist
      « Reply #1 on: February 07, 2009, 11:51:05 PM »
      thats pretty weird isnt it. i got the same deal.

      1st physical drive installed, C:, D:, E:,

      2nd physical drive installed, F:, G:, H:,

      3rd phsical drive installed, I:, J:, K:,

      removables: N:, O:, P:, Q:, R:, S:

      opticals T:, V:

      Network drive X:

      And i have mystery drives designated  L:, and M: in MyComputer on an Athlon powered system. I never really cared, dont think its ever been a problem, and basically totally forgot about it until your post reminded me of it

      Go figure

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      Foggs

      patio

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      Re: more drives show up in My Computer than physically exist
      « Reply #2 on: February 08, 2009, 06:36:40 AM »
      One of your drives must have a 2nd partition on it...
      Post a screenshot of the Disk Management Window...
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      TheShadow



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      Re: more drives show up in My Computer than physically exist
      « Reply #3 on: February 08, 2009, 07:27:25 AM »
      Some, rather Bogus CD burning programs, will create a virtual drive. :'(

      My old version of windows XP had a drive M: that showed as a CD drive, but wasn't really there at all.  I could not remove it.  It needed an exorcism. lol

      I solved that and several other non-fixable problems in XP by setting up (Installing) XP on a new hard drive and making that my main drive. 

      Just a thought!

      Shadow  8)
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      patio

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      Re: more drives show up in My Computer than physically exist
      « Reply #4 on: February 08, 2009, 07:48:28 AM »
      Good to seeya again Shadow...how ya been ? ?

       ;)
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      rojerd

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        Re: more drives show up in My Computer than physically exist
        « Reply #5 on: February 10, 2009, 08:48:37 AM »
        Hi all, thanks for taking an interest - at least I'm not the only one!

        here is the requested screenshot:

        thanks again

        [attachment deleted by admin]
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        System: Vista SP1; AMD X2 3800+; 2GB of DDR 400 RAM; 80GB Seagate PATA IDE;  Creative SB Audigy 2ZS; + 2 ASUS VH242H LCDs

        patio

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        Re: more drives show up in My Computer than physically exist
        « Reply #6 on: February 10, 2009, 05:30:58 PM »
        Most convoluted setup i've seen in awhile i have to say...
        You have 4 Physical Drives  in that machine...
        Then you have the Kingston which is a 2G flash drive...
        Your screen capture only shows 1 Optical drive but i'll take your word there are 2 installed...
        Disk 2 if you note which i'm assuming is the WD 160 has 2 partitions on it...this is why it is being reported in My Computer as 5 drives...My Computer does not distinguish between Physical Drives  and Partitions
        Both physical drives and any extra partitions will be reported all as drives in My Computer...

        Hope this helps more than confuses the issue.

        patio.
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