[SOLVED] Mystery 500GB drive showing up on new PC build

jaged

Distinguished
Aug 17, 2011
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Drives installed:
WD SN570 1tb nvme. C: with Windows 10 Home installed

Seagate 1TB HDD
WD Blue 1TB HDD
Samsung 860 Evo 1TB previously C: on old PC.

Show I was showing all of those drives no problem PLUS a 500GB drive with nothing on it.

I removed each drive until the mystery 500GB went away & the culprit is the Samsung 860 Evo SSD.
I just hooked it back up and the 500GB drive is back again. It has a drive letter...looks like a real drive.

The Samsung SSD is showing 1000GB:

Here is what I'm seeing:
View: https://imgur.com/a/9StE6ow
 
Solution
If I do that will it delete everything off the entire drive or just kinda merge the 500 back “into the fold” as it were.

:)
It will neither delete everything from the drive, or add that 500MB to the rest of it.

That partition will still exist, just that you won't see it unless you go into Disk Management.

It is tiny, taking up a trivially small amount of space.
Remove the drive letter, and leave that teeny partition where it is, until the next time you reformat that whole drive.

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
If the Samsung 860 Evo was the older system's OS drive, then it's highly probable that that's the system reserved partition for said older OS. By any chance did you install the OS on the older system in CSM mode? Might want to see what Disk Management has to say about the partition structure for your 860 Evo. I'd use DiskPart and delete both partitions for the 860 Evo, provided you've backed up all mission critical data off the 860 Evo SSD.

You could use an app like EASEUS Partition Master to format and delete the 500MB partition then merge said partition to the existing 930MB partition but I like to work from the ground up and leave little to doubt.

Are you yet under warranty for the SSD?
 

jaged

Distinguished
Aug 17, 2011
196
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Do you mean the "D drive", shown in File Explorer?

That is 500MB, not GB.
That is the previous boot partition...just now, it has a drive letter, D.
Ahhh MB instead of GB.

it wasn’t showing like that in my old PC that it just came out of.

do I get rid of it using methods mentioned by LUTFIJ above?
I’m not ready to format the EVO ssd.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Ahhh MB instead of GB.

it wasn’t showing like that in my old PC that it just came out of.

do I get rid of it using methods mentioned by LUTFIJ above?
I’m not ready to format the EVO ssd.
Just remove the drive letter.
It will still exist, but you won't see it.
500MB is tiny, and of no consequence.

In Disk Management, Right click on the partition.
Select 'Change Drive letter or path...'
Remove the drive letter.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
If I do that will it delete everything off the entire drive or just kinda merge the 500 back “into the fold” as it were.

:)
It will neither delete everything from the drive, or add that 500MB to the rest of it.

That partition will still exist, just that you won't see it unless you go into Disk Management.

It is tiny, taking up a trivially small amount of space.
Remove the drive letter, and leave that teeny partition where it is, until the next time you reformat that whole drive.
 
Solution