How to remove unwanted drives

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I have four unwanted drives left over from an old HP Photosmart printer which is now gone. It “installed” drives for its various card readers; e.g. CF/MD card and Sm/xD Card. They show up as drives; F:, G:, etc. and as printers. If I remove them in Devices and Printers or Uninstall with Device Manager they come back on Restart. They are Zombies.

My guess is that they are in the registry somewhere but that is just a guess.

Any suggestions on how to get rid of them?

Windows 10 Pro, Dell XPS 8700:confused:

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Try Nir Sofer’s free/portable USBDeview (and make sure you download the right x32/64 version).

It will show the drives as ‘Not connected’ and allow you (from the File menu or right-click context menu option) to Uninstall Selected Devices.

Hope this helps…

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Thank you for you interest. That is an interesting program. Unfortunately, it works the same as all the other attempts. It thinks the device is gone but it returns from the dead on restart.

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Thank you for you interest. That is an interesting program. Unfortunately, it works the same as all the other attempts. It thinks the device is gone but it returns from the dead on restart.

1. How did you run USBDeview? (i.e. once un-zipped, did you just double-click on the USBDeview executable or did you right-click on it and use ‘Run as Administrator’?)

2. How did you get rid of the HP software when you got rid of the printer?

3. Have you checked whether any software for the old printer is running from startup?

Hope this helps…

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1. Did both (ran from my account which has adm privilege and ran as adm)
2. Uninstalled from control panel
3. No HP printer software runs at startup
(only hp software is hp scheduler)
Zombie drives won’t go away.
Thanks for your interest. Weird situation. HP, as usual, is no help.

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Run the following commands in an elevated command prompt:

SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1
(enter)

START DEVMGMT.MSC
(enter)

A “Device Manager” window will open, click “Show Hidden Devices” in the View menu.

You can now uninstall any invalid/disconnected devices (right-click/Uninstall).

Once you have finished uninstalling devices restart the computer; Windows should re-install any devices as necessary (but might prompt for driver software).

WARNING: exercise caution, particularly with removal of sound, network, and non-plug’n’play devices; devices in these categories might be shown dimmed as if not present but are nevertheless needed for the parent device to function correctly.

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Thanks for your suggestion. Unfortunately, this just repeats what I mentioned in my original post as an action which does not work. Your first 2 steps just open Device Manager which can be opened directly. I uninstalled the 4 “drives” and they reappear after a restart.

As mentioned the original post, my guess is that there are registry entries somewhere that resurrects the zombies. No hard evidence.

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Try using the mountvol command.

1. Right-click on the Start button and open a Command Prompt (Admin).

2. Type mountvol f: /L then press Enter. This should show the VolumeName including its GUID for the first of your zombie drives.

For example:
44275-mountvol
Click to enlarge

If mountvol shows a VolumeName for F: then you should be able to use mountvol f: /d to delete the mount point. This will be safer than searching for the GUID in the registry and deleting the found keys.

Hope this helps…

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Yeah! Cool! At least it worked on the one I tried. Probably will kill those others as well.
This looks like DOS. God – I hated DOS. Thirty years ago I was a Mac guy, as were all but one of my co-workers. Glad DOS survived after all.

Thanks:o

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Someone suggested another solution using a Windows tool.
Open Disk Management
Select the Zombie Drive
Choose Change Drive Letter and Path
Click Remove

Interestingly, both solution leave the Zombie drives as Disks (e.g. Disk 2, Disk 3, Disk 4, Disk 5) and start the remaining useful Disks as Disk 6, …. Strange but not a real problem in practice.

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Can you post a screenshot?

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Will try. Is there an easy way to post an image? This seems barbaric.

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Did you have the ‘old’ printer installed prior to upgrading to Windows 10?

Did you un-install the ‘old’ printer software before upgrading?

Do you have any HP Photosmart software still visible in Control Panel > Programs and Features? If not, download/run Autoruns, wait until the scanning finishes then scroll down the list looking for entries that mention HP or Photosmart.

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1) Yes “old” printer installed before upgrade to Win 10
2) As I recall, I had to reinstall “old” printer after upgrade to Win 10
3) Yes; I uninstalled “old” printer software from Control Panel before installing new printer.
4) No Photosmart software shows in Control Panel>Programs and Features

Autoruns.exe – neat program Seems to show interesting items in the registry. I suspected from the beginning that these zombies were in the registry somewhere. Apparently not but this seems to clear up that conjecture. There are a bunch of entries for HP but nothing even close to the old printer (HP Photosmart). Most I recognize such at the new printer (HP Officejet 5740), HP updates, HP Smart Print and some general HP support.

I looked manually and then use the filter for HP so I don’t think I missed anything.

Did you post your screen shot with ? There has to be a better way than uploading to a website and then downloading here.

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If you want a second opinion on your Autoruns results, click on the Save button, save as a .ARN file and attach it to a post.

Did you post your screen shot with [ img ] http:// something[ /img ]? There has to be a better way than uploading to a website and then downloading here.

I use direct upload for any screenshots. Unfortunately the forum’s instructions (Attachments and Images) in the FAQ section are a bit inaccurate so here’s how to do it.

1. Click on Insert Image:

44279-sc1

2. Click on the From Computer tab then on the Basic Uploader link:

44280-sc2

3. Click on the Browse button and select the screenshot you want to upload:

44281-sc3

4. Click on Upload (files):

44282-sc5

Result:

44283-sc6

Hope this helps…

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Looks perfect. Thanks. This is just to make sure I understand.
44284-DiskManagement2

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Looks perfect. Thanks. This is just to make sure I understand.

Yep, the uploaded screenshot looked good.

Back to your zombie drives. In post #15 I mentioned about posting a .ARN file from Autoruns if you wanted a second opinon.

As neither mountvol or removing in Disk Management worked, I suspect that removing the zombie drives may involve searching and editing the registry. What’s your thoughts on this? For example, “no way, not going there, will just live with it” or “yes, I’m comfortable with registry editing”, etc.

Note: if the removable drive shown as L: in your screenshot is one of the zombie drives, don’t use mountvol or remove its drive letter for the moment (as it’s likely the next step will be searching for the zombie drive’s GUIDs in the registry and deleting the found keys… after first backing them up).

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Long shot but worth a try, in Windows explorer right click one of the zombie drives and click Eject if it’s available.

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http://meiere.com/FORRESTDESKTOP.arn1) Sorry I missed the suggestion about posting .arn file.
2) I feel OK modifying the registry – did that successfully twice.
Apparently can’t post the .arn file with you Insert Image procedure. Will try another way.

Does not seem to work. Maybe this?
http://meiere.com/FORRESTDESKTOP.arn

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OK, nothing untoward in the .ARN file.

I had another look at the documentation re: mountvol and I’m going to suggest a test before delving into the registry. In post #16 your screenshot of Disk Management shows Disk 5 now has no drive letter. Are you able to right-click on Disk 5 and give it a new drive letter, e.g. F: ?

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Yes I assigned Disk 5 the letter F: (which was the default).
When I started the process, I got this message (and clicked Yes)
44286-AssignDisk5_letterF

I feel guilty taking your time. Hope this is interesting to you. I can live with the current, sorta screwed up, situation.

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Yes I assigned Disk 5 the letter F: (which was the default).
When I started the process, I got this message (and clicked Yes)

I feel guilty taking your time. Hope this is interesting to you. I can live with the current, sorta screwed up, situation.

Looking on t’Internet, it doesn’t appear anyone has run into this before so, yes, it’s interesting. I almost wish I had an old Photosmart printer to experiment with. 🙂 Let me know if you run out of patience!

Try this:
1. Right-click on the Start button and open a Command Prompt (Admin) (like before).

2. Type mountvol f: /L then press Enter (like before).

3. Select the entire VolumeName (inc. GUID – see example screenshot below) then press Enter to save this to the clipboard.

4. Type mountvol then a space then paste (CTRL+V) the VolumeName then type a space followed by /d as in example screenshot below.

44288-mountvol_del
Click to enlarge

5. Press Enter. This should remove not only the drive letter but the zombie drive’s mount point as well.

Check in Disk Management whether Drive 5 (F: ) has been removed.

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Very interesting but unsuccessful. (At least I discovered how to screen copy from the cmd screen.)

I followed your instructions. I think I did it correctly. Here are the steps.
44289-26April2016_AttemptedKill
The F: drive is still intact with its original name (surprise?)

Actually I did it twice with the same result.

STRANGE: A new drive DIAGS (G:) appeared.
44290-26April2016_ZombieDrives
Unlike the other Zombies which think they are removable, this one will open but report that is empty (the others say “Please insert a disk into …”)

Upon restart, there is no DIAGS (G:)

(I feel guilty taking so much of your time. I think the exercise is fascinating.)

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Your F: drive now looks like it’s a Sony Memory Stick PRO Duo. What was the model no. of the HP Photosmart printer? I can find one with 2 memory card slots but not one with four.

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1) The old printer was HP Photosmart D5360 (may she rest in peace). I never used the memory slots. The unique feature was that it printed on CDs. Apparently Epson has a patent on that and I can’t buy an HP printer that does that.
2) Found what looks like a solution. So far the Zombie drives are gone forever:

Disk Management: (I type “partition” into Cortana but there are other ways)
Right Click on unwanted removable drive.
Choose “Properties” from the pop-up window. This opens a new window with tabs.
Click on “Driver” tab and click on “Disable”. Answer “Yes” to warning.

So far, the Zombies are go after restart.

My only dilemma is what to do about the removable drive L: which shows up as

USB Drive (L:) I am afraid that removing this will prevent me from using flash drives.
Will worry about that later

Thanks for all your time. It was an interesting trip and I learned a lot. In college, I had to pay tuition. Long live the web.

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Glad you found a solution and thanks for posting back.

If it helps for future use, Disk Management is one of the options if you right-click on the Start button.

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You have the patience of a saint. Wish I could do more than say thank you.

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Not sure my family would agree with you but very happy to help. It was an interesting problem which I’ve never run into before.

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I threw caution to the wind and modified the registry (not something I like to do).
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > Mounted Devices
This shows a lot of stuff I don’t understand but at the end were all the zombie drive letters. 44305-Regedit_DeleteDriveLetters
I deleted the ones I didn’t want (G: through M:)
Everything seems OK. Restarted; new flash drives are assigned the correct letters.

Your USBDevice program (nice) doesn’t show any unwanted drive letters except it shows F: for both a USD Mass storage device and the USB removable for my printer. Not going to worry about that.s

Thanks again for your patience.

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I threw caution to the wind and modified the registry (not something I like to do).

I’m pleased the results appear OK… thanks for posting back.

PS – You live nearly 4000 miles away. I had no idea what ‘SC’ meant so I Googled ‘Pawleys Island’ (which looks idyllic) and now know it means ‘South Carolina’. As a result, I admit that I chickened out of suggesting that you amend the registry manually. Too risky if something had gone wrong, for example deleting the wrong mount point. I couldn’t have just jumped in my car… 🙂

EDIT: G: through M:? Looking at the screenshot, isn’t that one more drive letter than the printer had memory slots?

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Yes. Apparently some of my more misguided efforts added drive letters.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

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Amazing. Windows 10 updated automatically (don’t you just love Microsoft!!). The Zombie Drives are back again. I tried to repeat the earlier process but it does not work. I learned all sorts of stuff about GUID classes and USBSTOR… but nothing works. In the back of my mind I am praying for a complete computer failure so I can go back to Mac which I left 15 years ago. Wonder if I will recognize anything.

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I have an XPS 8700. I have the same drives. I think the drives are the result of the media reader on the front panel of the machine. There seems to be one drive for each of the media reader slots.

I have never had a printer with a media reader.

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