Unknown Hard drive

[xarden]

Heres a new one...
Mysteriously, a new harddrive is showing up in My Computer.
Q:
It wasnt there a few hours ago.
Without sounding like a 60's sci-fi flick... what is it, where did it come from, and why is it here?

Theres no network mapping to it. No local access. No properties. No physical drive. No partition. No removable media. No clue.

Am I missing something...?
Cheers

 

[gregrocker]

Screenshot is unreadable. Are you using Snipping Tool from Start Menu?

 

[theog]

Do have MS Office installed?

 

[xarden]

Sorry, its just a printscreen. I have dual monitors... clicking it should expand it.
Yes i have office 07

 

[Brink]

Hello Xarden,

Strange. Using OPTION TWO in the tutorial below as a guide, open regedit and look in the location below to see if you see a /DosDevices\Q: entry. If you do delete it, and see if the drive is gone after a restart.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/82994-drive-letter-add-change-remove-windows-7-a.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[xarden]

Hi Shawn,
Thanks for your quick reply.
Followed option 2.
I also noted another key with the same binary data as /dosdevice/q: so I deleted that too.
Restarted machine and opened my computer again, and Q: is back there. So are both the regkeys.
Strange indeed.

Edit: Tried again without deleting the other key. No difference.

 

[fishnbanjo]

Go into the BIOS and see if the drive detection for the Phantom Drive is set to Auto Detect. If it is set it to Off, Save Changes and exit to boot, let us know if that drive is gone.

C: will be Primary Master if D: is your drive check to see where your CD/DVD etc are connected on the mobo, if the CD/DVD is the Slave and you have no other connected drives turn off both Primary and Slave Secondary Drives, if CD/DVD is master turn off both Slaves in BIOS.

 

[dnorris]

Sounds like you have Office 2010 beta installed....
it uses the click-to-run technology which creates the Q: drive.

 

[xarden]

@fishnbanjo, C: & D: are on Sata0, DVD (E drive is on Sata1. BD-rom (G drive is virtual.
Thanks for the suggestion though.

@dnorris, that would actually explain a lot. I did have office 2007 as thats what we're licensed for.
I was one of the guinea pigs for 2010, to see if we should upgrade. Im not sure where we got the .iso's from.
As it turns out, we wont be upgrading.
But, 2010 did have some uninstall issues. So I just reinstalled 2007 over the top.
You seem knowledgeable with 2010, so perhaps you could help me with the uninstall error.

 

[dnorris]

I installed the 2010 RTM when it was available on Technet back in April.
I had some trouble removing the beta version, and believe I had to run
RipOutOffice2007
Unable to uninstall or remove Microsoft Office 2007 | The Windows Club
You might try that.