Why can’t I delete removable disks?

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When I open My Computer, I see drives C, K & L, the latter two of which are external hard drives. Also shown are “Removable disks” F,G,H,I,& J. I have unplugged and plugged in my external drives on a number of occasions which may account for all of those removable disks. Is there reason why I can’t just delete them? None of them have sizes associated with them as do the other three.

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F,G,H,I, and J are typically assigned to a Flash Card reader built in to many PCs. each drive is for a different format Flash Card. You would have to uninstall the driver for the card reader to get rid of the drives.

Jerry

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Check Folder Options/View and see if Hide empty drives in the computer folder is checked or not.

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TO: jwitalka
Those driver weren’t there when I got my current system. They just cropped up over time. How do I know whether I have a Flash Card reader, and if I have, would it be listed as such in Device Manager? If not how do I remove the driver if I have the reader?

To: F.U.N. downtown (interesting handle!)
Hide empty drives is checked.

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TO: jwitalka
Those driver weren’t there when I got my current system. They just cropped up over time. How do I know whether I have a Flash Card reader, and if I have, would it be listed as such in Device Manager? If not how do I remove the driver if I have the reader?

To: F.U.N. downtown (interesting handle!)
Hide empty drives is checked.

First off if you have a flash card reader you will see a device with flash card slots on your computer normally on the front .
The flash card reader is listed under portable devices in device manager, but as F.U.N said if you just delete the drivers they will be reinstalled on next reboot. So only unplugging the actual device will get rid off them.
But if you have a card reader why would you you want to disable it as can be useful sometimes.

Best to use F.U.N’s advise “Check Folder Options/View and see if Hide empty drives in the computer folder is checked or not”. Then if no cards plugged in they will not show in my computer.

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Well, if you put the view into anything except List, there’s a little caret on the right side you can toggle to hide them, but it also includes optical drives so they’re hidden as well.

I think the only other very effective way of hiding them is to unplug the connector to the media reader or whatever has the empty removable storage. I don’t think uninstalling the driver for each (right click/properties/hardware/select hardware/properties/driver/remove) will work because they’re automatically detected and installed again when the system is restarted.

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Do you have any 5 port USB external Hubs connected via USB? They will also use the same drive letters if no card reader installed.

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To: F.U.N.
I’m probably a little dense as I don’t understand what you mean by “Well if you put the view into anything but List, …”. Could you explain that?

I think it’s pretty clear that I don’t have a card reader nor do I have anything else plugged into my computer except one external drive I use for back ups. As I noted in post #4 “Hide empty drives in the computer folder” is checked. I don’t actually have a computer folder. I simply have a desktop icon that I click on. Would that make a difference?

I am trying to attach screen shot showing the screen when I click on the computer icon. I’m not really sure of what I’m doing here so it may not be attached or it may not be readabl. I’ll just hope for the best:rolleyes:

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I have no USB external hubs.

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I don’t know what to tell you about the removable storage drives; that is the classic signature of a card reader built into that system somewhere. If you provide the make and model of computer, somone could probably look it up and see if they see anything strange, or hidden behind a sliding or hinged cover (assuming these devices have always been there). The computer will rarely (I’ve never seen it) make a mistake about that many removable storage signatures. What else it could be I do not know. You can delete (uninstall the driver) each one as noted earlier but if they come back on a restart then they are almost certainly there.

As for hiding them in the Computer window, which you have pictured, I think in Tiles view (definitely not List), the actual line where it says Devices with Removable storage, there’s a little caret at both ends of the line, click on it once to roll the Removable storage section into hiding, click it again to expand it back out into view, and so on…

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Iodidd1, open Windows explorer, right click on one of these drives and the click on the hardware tab. What does it show?

Jerry

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To: F.U.N.
My computer id a Dell Studio 540 running Win7 SP1 64bit. I tried uninstalling the drives in Device Mgr. where they were listed under Portable Devices and restarted the computer. They were still there. In the tiles view, there is a caret only on the left side of the line, and that simply rolls all of the removable drives out of sight including my D & E drives, which isn’t good.

To: jwitalka:

When I right click on one of those drives, I don’t get a screen which has tabs. What I do get is show in the attached screen shot.

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My attachment didn’t get attached because it was 10MB over the limit. I’ll try and created one that’s a little smaller and try again.

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I hope the attached screen shot is clear enough.

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Hi lodidad1,

When you right click on the drive and get the screenshot above, click properties and then the hardware tab.

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When I click on properties and then the hardware tab, I get a list of four generic USB devices, my two CD-Rom drives, my back up hard disk and my C drive. We’re getting to where CuriousClive is at. See the next post.

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I’m wondering if you installed a printer with slots for reading photo cards. THey show up on my machine as a drive.

Sarge

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I do have a printer with 3 slots for different cards, but I think in my case the extra drives are related to the computer card reader.

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Hopefully when you unplug the drives you click on the drive and eject the drive. If you just unplug it maybe that is why the drive letters are still there?
You might try clicking on the drive letter and see if you can eject the drive. Maybe that will clear the drive letters?

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quote> I think it’s pretty clear that I don’t have a card reader <end quote

It is far from clear as you do have a card reader.

The Dell Studio 540 actually has a 16.1 card reader as this linkto your specs will show.
And this is a copied shot of said spec.
16:1 Media Card Reader
Now all of your digital device memory cards can be read from one single place.

So you actually have no problem at all. It is probably under the flap below your DVD drive.
The drives were maybe originally set to be hidden until a card was plugged in.

Thislink shows where it is.(Page 14 / Item 11)

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To: curiousclive

I stand (sit actually) corrected. You are absolutely right. I do have a card reader (4 actually, I think). Because they’re located down under my CD-Rom drives they’re out of the way and not noticeable – particularly if one isn’t using them. I suppose if I were using the card from my digital camera or a flash drive or a card from some other device, we wouldn’t have had this interesting and informative discourse as I wouldn’t have been confused. Thanks to all of you who participated.

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Thanks for posting back and letting us know your problem has been resolved.

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on my HP Pavilion Elite, windows explorer always shows 4 drives, H I J K, which I think are ‘card drives’, but I never use.
just reading this thread, I displayed in computer view, right-clicked on 1 of them, and in the dropdown list saw “TBIMOUNT – UNMOUNT DRIVELETTER”.
when I clicked on this on all 4, they all disappear from the windows explorer list.
however, they still show in the computer list. TBIMOUNT is part of IMAGE FOR WINDOWS.

I assume the 4 would show up again on a reboot; now that I see I can unmount them, it will keep my drive list shorter, and easier to get at the real ones.

Vern

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I believe installing drivers for the various drives available causes them to show on the list. For example I have installed drivers for my SD Card Reader and it does show on the list, whereas those drivers that are installed when a device is plugged in (i.e. USB devices) do not show on the list in Windows Explorer unless a device is plugged into the port.

This allows a device to open quicker when it is plugged in. If I did not have the drivers installed for the SD Card Reader, then I would have to go through the process each time I plugged in a card. Not very efficient.

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I use these removable drives infrequently, but enough to want to keep them. So a non-technical re-labelling of the drives to X: Y: and Z: got them out of my hair whilst keeping them active.
Hope that helps.

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Best practices dictates not labeling drive with letters at the end of the alphabet since they are quasi-reserved for network mapped drives. As long as one is aware of that and not ever going to map network locations it’s ok, but as a general rule, leave the last three or so available.

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Go to Disk Management, diskmgmt.msc
In the default layout, on the left bottom you should see panes with Removable (F), Removable (G), etc.
Right click on a pane.
Left click on Change Drive Letter and Paths…
Left click on Remove, then on Yes.
Repeat for all drives you want removed.
Close Disk Management.
You’re done; the drives will not show up in Windows Explorer.
If you need the card reader later, just reverse the process.
—
You can do the same thing with hard drives; or put them Offline. Or both.

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Thanks lesle.

Very interesting – and it works just as you said! It’s strange that someone didn’t suggest this technique earlier.

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