Mystery drive

[DSM4Life]

Windows explorer shows a Q drive which i never setup so i click it and it gives me error "Q drive is not accessible " - Access is denied. If i go into Disk Management it doesn't show a Q drive. what is this ?

 

[Rizo-uk]

could it be the system reserved 100mb drive windows 7 creates that isnt normally viewable?

 

[TempliNocturnus]

When did it first appear? Does it remain after a reboot?

 

[DSM4Life]

I dont know, just noticed it.

 

[TempliNocturnus]

Yeah that would be characteristic of Win7's "System reserved" volume, but it usually has a drive letter. Yours does not, according to device manager, yet there's a Q drive in explorer.

You can see what the diskpart utility says. Just type diskpart at the run or cmd prompt then type: list vol
look for the System Reserved label and see whether it's mapped to Q.

 

[DSM4Life]

^^Yup

 

[TempliNocturnus]

hmm try this in diskpart and see what it gives you:

sel vol 1
assign letter Q
list vol

 

[DSM4Life]

What does that do ?

 

[medo145]

try this from a command prompt

subst q: /d

 

[DSM4Life]

Im not trying anything until people tell me what these commands do. I don't want to make things worse.

 

[TempliNocturnus]

Im not trying anything until people tell me what these commands do. I don't want to make things worse.

sel vol 1
assign letter Q
list vol

Selects volume 1 (the System Reserved volume, according to your screenshot)
assignes the drive letter "Q" to volume 1
Displays the active volumes

I'd like to see if it will let you do this.

subst q: /d

Most likely will do absolutely nothing in your current situation. Type just "subst" and if doesn't output anything, then the subst q: /d will only return invalid.

 

[joedymueller]

do you have a printer hooked up or anything for that matter, that has a SD card slot?

 

[medo145]

can you post a pic of what disk 0 and 1 look like inside disk management, first image only shows disk 2 and cd-rom.

can you also grab a screen shot of the computer window

 

[petteyg359]

do you have a printer hooked up or anything for that matter, that has a SD card slot?

I'd guess that before some mysterious "system drive", too.

 

[doz]

Or it could be a virtual drive.. Do you have a virtual drive setup w/ nothing mounted?

 

[chawks2]

it most certainly is the system partition created by w7. it holds all the system information for your partitions + bootldr etc (old boot.ini).

u wipe it and good luck getting your system operational without problems. it is def more robust for moving systems/cloning, but i believe it is something which could have been a lot less complex.

read more about it from my experience

 

[medo145]

it most certainly is the system partition created by w7. it holds all the system information for your partitions + bootldr etc (old boot.ini).

u wipe it and good luck getting your system operational without problems. it is def more robust for moving systems/cloning, but i believe it is something which could have been a lot less complex.

read more about it from my experience

why would it would it assign a letter to it?

plus he didn't show us what disk 0 and 1 look like in disk management

 

[chawks2]

why would it would it assign a letter to it?

who knows? just offering my expertise on these silly hidden boot partitions.

 

[medo145]

who knows? just offering my expertise on these silly hidden boot partitions.

Well that's why i asked, figuring you would know, I knew about the hidden partition but it has never assigned a letter for me. if that is the case, then he can just un-assign the drive letter from that partition.

 

[chawks2]

Well that's why i asked, figuring you would know, I knew about the hidden partition but it has never assigned a letter for me

it shouldnt assign a letter, we need more information from the thread author. my guess would be, IF Q was the system partition, it could have been something created in the past and W7 is just reassigning a previous drive letter, but does not explain why its not labeling it in diskpart. Q drive letter default assignment is unusual, especially with only 4 apparent physical drives.