I know, this is completely puzzling!
The C drive has some how "cloned" itself and I am not sure if even a System Restore could do anything. Perhaps removing the drive letter F: (deleting it), but we are unaware of the exact circumstanced under which this occurred, so it may not be safe..
I haven't tried cloning my F drive to the E drive. I looked in the C drive and I think the F drive is a clone of C:\Windows. the new drive is already installed for about a month or two now, I can't do a system restore.
I think I know how the problem with the cloned drive appeared. While trying to solve the installing AutoCAD problem, it recommened me to create a virtual drive by using "subst" command in cmd on the website. That is why the F drive suddenly appeared for no reason. Sorry. But the problem with installing AutoCAD is still there. Do you guys know what is the problem with that?
I do not know anything about AutoCAD and how to install it - plain speak.:)
But if you want to eliminate the Phantom drive , you may try this:
Download v 0.8.1 of the drivecleanup.zip from Drive Tools for Windows.
Unzip it to a folder, say drivecleanup.
You will have two folders Win32 and x64 each containing DriveCleanup.exe for 32 bit and 64 bit respectively.
Remove all USB storage devices from your system (except your Keyboard and mouse) and reboot.
Right click on the DriveCleanup.exe and run as administrator. (Use the *.exe file appropriate for your bit version of Windows.).
After the clean up act, reboot and check whether your system still shows the Virtual F drive.
As a matter of fact, once you said it is a physically no-existent drive, I wanted to suggest this drive cleanup, but curious to know what has brought about this phantom drive. How can just removing a faulty drive and replacing it with a nes drive bring out a phantom drive? Now that mystery is resolved.
This will be the first time I shall be recommending the drive cleanup under this unusual occurrence and really don't know whether it will actually work in this case. But no harm in trying. It just removes the non-present devices, drive letters and registry entries associated with those non-present devices.
As a matter of abundant caution, create a system restore point before you run the drive cleanup under this circumstance..
Been watching this thread, it is quite unusual
I was wondering about RAID, I see one of the volumes is labelled RAID, is it possible that using hardware (im guessing) RAID could have confused the mobo regards the sata ports ?
Ok so did a bit of digging and it look like the subst has created this virtual drive
Can you remember the exact command that created this
appending /d should delete the volume
I believe the command to delete the virtual drive path will be something like this
subst F: /d
but im really not 100% so I would wait for someone else to confirm
bit of info here Subst and here MS-DOS subst command help
I don't have a answer but I do have a question.
I noticed that the (E) drive is RAID. Could that have something to do with this?
Snap shot i post #4
That was my train of thought in my last post #15 but im thinking it is a virtual drive going by the command used
I had also noticed the RAID drive and was intending to ask details of it. Since the OP came out that he used the subst command during the AutoCAD after which the F drive came into existence, a direct link is established and RAID even remotely connected in anyway was ruled out (by me).
It would appear that a failed AutoCAD install had left the virtual drive. Only someone who had installed AutoCAD and familiar with it could throw more light on this - whether it is a temporary virtual drive created to install it or is part of the installed program..
Quote