Question Phantom USB Drive

[spookypuppy]

Hi, I'm hoping someone here can help me figure this out. I had my custom computer built on 9/5/2023 and since I got it home, every time I plug something into one of the rear panel USB ports, a greyed out USB drive shows up in File Explorer. I have disabled and uninstalled this drive in both Device Manager and Disk Management and yet it continues to reappear. I have also looked in the BIOS to see if it was listed there, however it was not. I am completely at a loss as to how to permanently rid myself of this ghost drive, please let me know if I need to provide any files to help diagnose the problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated., and thank you for taking the time to read this.

 

[Colif]

you could try using this and see if you can delete that drive from memory - https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

 

[spookypuppy]

you could try using this and see if you can delete that drive from memory - https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

I installed the program that you linked, but I can't tell which drive is the one causing the problem.

 

[Colif]

did you run it and plug in the USB drive?
does the ghost drive have a drive letter?

Type cmd in Windows Start Search box (Cortana) > Right click and run as Administrator
Give following command and Enter: diskpart
Now another window will be opened having diskpart.exe
Give following command and Enter: list volume
Give following command and Enter: select volumne n
(here n is volume number which you want to remove)
Give following command and Enter: remove letter=n

Source - https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-...

I have a ghost usb drive on "this pc" and i cannot get rid of it - Microsoft Q&A

I have a ghost usb drive on "this pc" and i cannot get rid of it, I have been talking to support but nothing has worked

answers.microsoft.com

- link is MIcrosoft

 

[spookypuppy]

did you run it and plug in the USB drive?
does the ghost drive have a drive letter?

I have a ghost usb drive on "this pc" and i cannot get rid of it - Microsoft Q&A

I have a ghost usb drive on "this pc" and i cannot get rid of it, I have been talking to support but nothing has worked

answers.microsoft.com

- link is MIcrosoft

Yes, it has a drive letter. I gave it the letter Z: so I could keep track of it. I did discover something interesting, I have an external Blu-ray player that has two extra USB ports in it. When I unplug this player the phantom drive goes away. It doesn't seem to be connected to the two USB ports on the Blu-ray player because when I plug it back in with two flash drives in the ports, the phantom drive (Z returns as well.

 

[Colif]

what make model is the blue ray drive?

sounds like its the cause then.

have you tried updating its drivers? unlikely that it is that there are any

Update the DVD/CD drive driver manually from device manager and check.

Press Windows key + X and select Device manager.
Now click on DVD/CD-ROM drive and expand it.
Right click on the device driver and click on update.

windows sees Blue ray as 2 devices

 

[spookypuppy]

what make model is the blue ray drive?

sounds like its the cause then.

have you tried updating its drivers? unlikely that it is that there are any

windows sees Blue ray as 2 devices

I ran diskpart and it unmounted drive Z and that seems to have fixed the problem. I have plugged all of my external USB devices and drives back in and drive Z has not reappeared. Thank you for taking the time to help out, I think we can mark this one as solved

 

[Colif]

I think we can mark this one as solved

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