Question Random Empty Q:\ drive...

[mojoey]

So, when I fired up Malwarebytes to do a scan before I went to bed, it asked which drives I wanted to scan, it displayed C:\ (my HDD) D:\ (recovery partition) E:\ (Optical Drive) F:\ (USB) and Q:\ (unknown)

So, i went to see what was going on. I looked to see how big it is, and it is exactly 0 bytes big. At this point I'm going :WTF:. So, I see if taking ownership will help. It doesn't work, I get an access is denied error when attempting to do so, even though I am a full admin on this computer now. So, should I be freaking out, or should I blame it on a virus, or System Restore?

 

[Urwumpe]

What about checking which driver or device is responsible for Q first? It could be a device of your computer.

 

[mojoey]

No, didn't check, but my computer has been updating recently, but I've never heard of it creating an empty partition...in fact, as soon as I'm done with some things, i'll let the system reboot, and see what happens

 

[Urwumpe]

No, didn't check, but my computer has been updating recently, but I've never heard of it creating an empty partition...in fact, as soon as I'm done with some things, i'll let the system reboot, and see what happens

Check the device first, I would say, it is very likely no partition at all, but a device of itself. Maybe a cardreader, maybe a mobile phone service, maybe a network device, maybe something related to another service which creates a virtual file system when active.

 

[mojoey]

Daemon Tools comes to mind, but I removed it two days ago, and this didn't show up
I don't have a card reader, nor a cell phone device, just the Wifi card...

 

[Urwumpe]

Take a look at this one, maybe it helps:

http://www.alexnolan.net/software/driveman.htm

 

[garyw]

run devmgmt.msc and see what is shows up as under there.

I wouldn't mess with permissions without knowing just what permissions I'm messing with.

0 bytes sounds like some sort of removable drive that hasn't cleaned up after itself when being removed. There is a fix for this which I'll dig out later and post here.

 

[mojoey]

It doesn't sound like a removable drive, since A) none have been plugged in for days, and B) its under the local disk category

 

[garyw]

can you post a screenshot from diskmgmt.msc of the drives please?

 

[mojoey]

diskmgmt.msc can't be found by the 'search for programs and files' function of the start menu

 

[Spacethingy]

Backup drive/partition? We've got a Dell Backup Partition thing that came with the new laptop - although that was a few GB big.

 

[mojoey]

Backup drive/partition? We've got a Dell Backup Partition thing that came with the new laptop - although that was a few GB big.

D:\ came with the computer, an HP recovery partition...it's only 4 gigs big, but I doubt it's the cause

that's what shows up...

 

[Urwumpe]

diskmgmt.msc can't be found by the 'search for programs and files' function of the start menu

Wrong operation. Hit Windows key + R or use task manager.

 

[RacerX]

I have run into this problem myself. It has to do with daemon tools. A couple of years ago if you removed the daemon tools the drive would still remain active. The way I fixed it was to re-install daemon tools,set the number of virtual drives to zero or disabled then uninstalling again. Then the drive was no longer listed in windows. I am not sure if this is your problem or not but if all else fails then might be worth a try.

 

[mojoey]

 

[RacerX]

Is this a laptop?

 

[mojoey]

Is this a laptop?

Yes, HP Dv7

 

[RacerX]

Yes, HP Dv7

Just a word of advice just so you know. Hp in the past put their CMOS/BIOS on the hard drive and not on a chip. So if that partition gets deleted then you HP will not boot up and you will have to pay for a CD/DVD restore disk. I am not saying yours is set up this way. Be carefull!

 

[mojoey]

It did mention it was updating the BIOS...maybe that's the cause :hmm:

 

[garyw]

The ghost drive isn't being seeing by diskmgmt.msc so it's not a drive that windows knows about. This means it's a device driver thats causing it. Daemon tools is a possibility.