Windows 7: Phantom removable drives

Running Win 7 x64 Ultimate, SP1 installed from this forum.

I hate asking stupid questions. It's embarrassing to get answers I should already know. So I tried to search first for this topic on this forum.

Out of 17 selections offered me only one was vaguely appropriate.

Is this a sad state of a search engine or a searcher?
I'm amazed that there is so little data. I could not be the only one with this issue. Oh well on to the problem.

It is a nuisance really.
I have phantom removable drives I:, J:, K: and L:
They show only in "My computer"

I do not have Office 2010 beta installed.

I have two esata drives connected with their power off. I disconnected their esasta cables just in case.
I have no floppy and removed it from the bios.

Rebooted and still have the phantoms.

Is it just me or have others experienced the same issue?

Any help will be appreciated.

Hi,

Does your machine have a multi SD card reader installed? If so then that'll be what the drives are, 1 for each reader.

It'll be similar to the image below...




OS

Right on Orbital Shark.

See I told you I should have known that!!!

On this new build I installed a 5.25" front panel multi duohicky device to get front panel USB and esata connections. It came with a multi-card reader that I ignored as this function was not needed. I thought I only hooked up the USB and sata ports.

As soon as you mentioned "card reader" the light bulb turned on. I slid in a sandisk and sure enough drive I: reads the label I have affixed to the sandisk.

That deserves a rep. How do I do that?


By the way-- can you help me with a punched tape bootstrap so I can light off this PDP8? Just kidding.
Computers have come a long way have they not?
And so much further to go!!

Thanks.

P.S. That multi front panel did not come with an esata
port but with a sata port. Got some sata to esata cables coming. Next I need to get front panel USB3 and sataIII.

Yep, they're the card readers slot, I too have them:



Click the scales icon besides his name:

Hello Jokdom,

In addition, you set Windows 7 to hide these media card reader drives that are empty using the tutorial below. When you plug a card in, the drive will automatically appear again. It's just a feature to help keep down the clutter in the Computer window.

Drives - Hide or Show Empty Drives in Computer Folder

Hope this helps,
Shawn

You're very welcome jokdom, and please enjoy the rest of the forums

Thanks Shawn, just what I needed and did not even have to ask for.
Next time I will just think about it and let you reply. That will save me some typing.

LOL, you're most welcome.

Good to know that my alien ESP is still working every once in a while.

I'm glad that we were able to help.

OOOps!!!

Shawn I can not hide the empty removable drives by the methods you pointed me to.

Method (1) will work if I turn off "Show all files and folders". Looks like this button trumps the tick in the
"hide empty removable drives" box. ( I want all hidden files visible)

Method (2) the download program to change register seems to do nothing even though it declares it does.

Method (3) Actual regedit modify HideDrivesWithNoMedia to 0. Log out, Log in, Reboot,
Cold boot. Verified 0 is in that parameter. (It was 1 originally)

Those empty drives still show in the computer folder.

What does your Alien sense tell you about that?

Jim

Jim,

My alien senses tell me you are in a catch 22.

Unfortunately if you want to keep the empty drives hidden, Don't Show hidden files, folders, and drives has to be selected (dotted) as well.