2 local disk drives- in 'my computer'

Question

Win XP home-Sp2 Hi, when I go to 'my computer'. I see the Local drive 'c' there. But, for some time now, I also see an additional local drive 'F' as well. Dont know how it got there I have never added any extra HD's. Only, software programs from the internet. WHen I double click to open, I see a Dell folder. Also, I see lots of files with the extention .MDM WHen I open the folder, it is mostly Dell stuff, a picture of where one can find the service code, something called dell tree. also a restart file. Heres what I saw when I right clicked on this Local disk 'F' drive. It is  a FAT system file.  My Local disk 'C' drive is an NTFS file  I see the usual 4 tabs (general. tools, hardware,sharing) > in the general tab, It shows USED space of 6.85 MB. FREE space shows 24.4 MB. under this circle, it says drive F. It also says that the capacity is  31.2 MB. Of course it lists it in bytes as well. >Under the HARDWARE tab, there I see my Cd,DVD, and floppy drives,Under types. BUT, I have two disk drives under TYPE . first one= Maxtor 6LO40J2 second one= OEI-USB CF/SM/SD/MS USB device. My relative stuck his thumb drive in my pc USB part a while back. i dont know what brand or memory. I think this has something to do with this. But, what do I do. Do, I redirect or move these lost files? delete them? hope you can help. thanks   Dell Dimension 2300 Pent 4 CPU 1.80 GHz 1.79 GHz,  256 MG RAM

ravik521 · Answer

did you ever reload your machine?

Mary G · Answer

Refresh your My Computer view by selecting View, Refresh in Windows Explorer. It's the thumb drive. Windows remembers it was there once.

RoadiJeff · Answer

Did you happen to plug in a digital camera to the USB port and download some photos to your computer? The total file size sounds like a 32 MB memory card. My card reader on my all-in-one printer shows up as drive F in the My Computer window.

azyardies · Answer

Mary: I refreshed in my computer. nothing changed. the local disk drive is still the same. was there a step that I missed. I went to Windows>clicked the view tab> then refresh. was that it? is so, then my reply stays that nothing changed. ravik521 : i did not reload my machine. though, i dont know what that means, i will assume I havent done it. If it means to do a clean install... no havent done anything major like that. RoadiJeff ; As per my original post, something probably happened when he plugged in his thumb drive. but, it seems like it didnt completely 'eject' from what you said in your reply. I I use my camera often to download pictures to my pc. never had this happen where a new FAT system drive appears and stays. I have never inserted a memory disk either (thumb drive)- nor have i inserted the Mem. cards. only my printer has that opening.   I appreciate all of your ideas. Anything else I can try??.  what would happen if I were to delted this local disk F? Or as I said, can I move them somewhere else, restart the pc, and see if it comes back? PS> all I have plugged into my pc at the moment is ,by USB, is my printer. Thanks   .

RoadiJeff · Answer

all I have plugged into my pc at the moment is ,by USB, is my printer.   If your USB printer has the memory card slot it will show up as a storage device, whether you use it or not. It works that way on my Epson.  You can delete it through your device manager but the next time you reboot it will go through the 'Found New Hardware' procedure and reinstall it.

azyardies · Answer

Hi Roadijeff-   I had already deleted this a couple of weeks ago in the device manager. it was listed as other with a warning yellow exclamation point. Anyways, up to this date, that 'Found New Hardware'  prompt comes up every time I reboot. Still, I went ahead and deleted it again today in the device manager ( I guess it came back). I rebooted twice. FUnny, cause the 'Found New Hardware' did not come back. and the Local F disk drive is still there. SHould I delete the OEI-USB-CF/SM/SD/MS USB device that is located in the device manager under disk drive? I suspect that this is the one that is showing up as the F disk drive in question. Or should I try uninstalling my printer and reinstalling it by the cd it came with?? Again I ask, CAN I delete safely the local disk 'F' under 'my computor' ?? will that fix everything?

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