Removing drives that dont exist

[David M]

Under "My Computer" in Windows Vista 64, it say that I have a drive F, G, H and I. No such drives or any such things exist. How do I correct this error? I cannot seem to find an option for correcting this.

Thanks

[pam123]

Before you do anything be sure the 'C' , 'D' and so on all there as you set them up initially with the first Vista install.

[Panama Red]

You sure those aren't your card reader slots?

[David M]

Not sure. How would I determine that? Under Properties it says "F" through "I" are a "Removable Disk" The only disk I have which is remotely removable is the C: drive.

[Panama Red]

Plug in a storage card from you camera and see what drive number it comes up under. Or shut down, unplug the card reader (I'm assuming you have one installed) from the usb pins on the mobo and reboot. If the drives are gone, that was it.

[pam123]

The card reader should be hooked up after you install the OS.
Did you ?

[David M]

I'm confused because Vista is calling it a "disk". Is a slot that reads a card considered a "disk"? To me a disk is something like a hard drive. But it would not surprise me if they called any sort of slot a "disk". Am I misunderstanding a definition or being too literal with Microsoft's software writers terminology?

It's not a big deal, I just thought I would clean up this seeming abundance of drives before I install my backup drive with Acronis. As it is now, my backup drive will be assigned as my J: drive.

[Panama Red]

Not sure about Vista 64 cuz I only run that on my HTPC and no card reader in there. But Vista 32 Ultimate calls the card reader slots "Removable Disks".

[Kubie]

Those are your card readers and they are called "removable disks". Its like when you plud in your USB thumb drive. It's called a removable disk also.

[David M]

Ok thanks. Now it makes sense. I guess people in Redmond also call horses, refrigerators and motorcycles, "removable disks' as well. Perhaps if they see something on the street and forget what its called then they call it a removable disk? It must be a cultural thing.

[tmathews]

They're considered "removeable disks" because as far as the OS is concerned they act like removeable disks: the reader is there but there's nothing to read/write until you plug in a flash card (like a floppy drive is there but there's nothing to read/write until you insert a floppy). This is different from something like a USB flash drive where there's no drive until you plug it in and once you do the media are fixed in the drive, like a USB hard drive.

Not meaning to hijack the thread, but is there a way to tell which drive is for which media without having to plug in a flash card? I use the SD card reader and might in theory use the MemoryStick reader but I don't expect to ever use the CF or MMC slots. I'd like to be able to give them more descriptive names than "Removeable Disk F:" and perhaps deallocate the drive letters associated with the unused readers (through Disk Management I assume?).