Solved How to delete "Unknown Disk 3"

[fireberd]

Windows is showing a Disk 3 that is not there. I'm not sure how it got there and I can't find a way to delete it.

Here is the screenshot from Disk Management

 

[jumanji]

Really don't know what is happening and in the circumstances shoot all around in dark

1.Make sure you do not have any USB storage device connected to the front and rear ports. Sometimes a faulty pen drive can show up as an HDD..

2. Open Device Manager and check the disk drives shown. Also examine under USB for any unknown device.

3. No clues? Try Power cycling your PC. Remove all externally connected devices (except your Key board and mouse), shut down your PC and disconnect it from Mains pulling out the power plug. Leave it for about five minutes. Press the power button repeatedly a few times and hold for a few seconds to remove all charges in the PC. Power your PC now and boot.

Does your PC still show Disk 3 in WDM? Right click on Disk 3 icon on the left and check what Menu items you get and also check what it says when you try to initialise.

 

[RolandJS]

I have bad eyes, how big is that unknown? What's the exact name given to it. I can't make image large enough for me to see it

 

[jumanji]

Hi Roland JS,

Click on the screenshot and you will get a full screen view of it with a zoom symbol. Click again and you will get a zoomed view.

If you still can't see anything, get your eyes tested ASAP.

 

[meebers]

Had the same thing last week on my machine and it claimed a "signature collision"?? meaning your disk 3 has the same signature with another drive in your system and therefore that drive is not recognized. My solution was to remove that disk, connect to another computer, rename it you have data on it or format it if you do not have data on it. Once I did that, then disk management tools was used to initialize & give it a drive # etc. YMMV

 

[fireberd]

There is nothing currently connected except the keyboard and mouse and the 3 internal drives (SSD for Win 7, SSD for Win 8.1 and a hard drive for other things (mainly my recording studio project files - I also use the PC for my recording studio).

The only thing I can see is it was a USB attached drive at some point. The external USB attached drive I have works properly and shows up when I attach it, so its not that one.

I suspect it will have to be deleted in the Registry, but I don't know where it would show up.

 

[fireberd]

Update, I just booted Win 8.1 (dual boot system) and Win 8.1 shows the exact same thing.
I checked the BIOS and the only thing listed is the actual drives that are connected (SATA connected).

 

[meebers]

Is there a reason why the system reserved partition is assigned Drive H: My DM looks like this: Windows thinks you have 4 disk's c:, D:, G:, and H:

 

[fireberd]

That was the way the Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit installed from the OEM version disc. I installed on a clean drive when I built the PC 3 years ago.

 

[Boozad]

Can you check your BIOS to see if you have Legacy USB enabled?

 

[fireberd]

It is enabled. Been enabled since I built the PC, but this problem just cropped up recently.

 

[Boozad]

I had a similar sort of problem occur, it's a bit of a long read but it's here. http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/306387-strange-usb-drive-showing-device-manager-6.html

Switching Legacy USN to Auto solved it for me. It's worth a shot.

 

[fireberd]

Thanks, just tried it but didn't make any difference.

 

[jumanji]

OK, again a shot in dark. But no harm in trying. Do a drive cleanup

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 DriveCleanup.exe file appropriate for your bit version of Windows.).

After the clean up act, reboot and check whether your system is still showing the non-existent drive.

( When you plug in your USB devices after this cleanup these will be installed afresh. What you have done is to remove all non-present devices and drive letters, Registry entries associated with them and start with a clean slate. Hopefully that should resolve the problem.)

 

[ComputerGeek]

Open Device Manager. Click View->Device by Connection. Expand ACPI devices till you get to PCI bus. Then expand everything under PCI bus.Can you find the disk in Dev Mgr when viewing by connection? what's it connected to? To start, try to see if it's a disk with a PCI, USB or virtual bus connection.

 

[fireberd]

Drive cleanup did not fix it. And nothing showing in Device Manager. The device is not present so nothing to show.

I also did a Registry search for "Disk 3" and didn't come up with anything.

 

[fireberd]

Amazing! I right clicked on the Disk 3 entry and then clicked Properties. I clicked Uninstall driver and now its gone!

 

[Boozad]

Brilliant, I just had a look at Disk Management and noticed I had a Disk 3 that certainly wasn't present, it claimed it was a USB drive. Followed what you did and it's gone. Top stuff!

 

[fireberd]

Sadly, when I rebooted it came back.

There's nothing connected that could be considered (or Windows thinks) its a USB drive. I have an external USB 3.0 drive but its properly recognized when I connect it. I have my recording studio peripherals (a Behringer BCF2000 and a Roland Studio-Capture and a Frontier Tranzport wireless controller) but they are powered off or disconnected in the case of the Tranzport. I have USB transceivers for a Microsoft wireless keyboard and a Logitech wireless mouse and an iLok USB key which shows up as a "dongle" in the Device Manager. I have a bank of 5 USB connected CD/DVD burners, that are powered off, but when powered on show up correctly.

As both Win 7 and Win 8.1 (dual boot) show the same things, it sort of goes back to the motherboard/BIOS (?). It has only been showing up for a month or so that I recall. I don't remember having it before. I have upgraded SSD's but they are SATA connected, not USB and the drives show up properly. The BIOS has not been upgraded (the last BIOS update for the motherboard was 2012).

 

[fireberd]

I disabled the device and now its not showing in the Disk Management panel. But that is not really a fix.

I'll have to let it go for a while. I have to setup for a recording session coming up at 11 AM (eastern).