Member Avatar for Såndoz

Hey all,
I recently added a cdrw to my machine. The drive letter for my backup hard drive was E: So I figure when i added the cdrw it wanted the default lettering system but E: was taken. During this time, XP somehow created and evil twin of my backup hardrive and called it H: Well, after changing the backup hard drive from E: to X: and renaming my cdrw to E: I STILL HAVE THAT H DRIVE which is the same as the x: drive...they are both on my explorer tree and I cannot remove it or make it whole!!!! I have tried doing a deep reformat on the backup drive and renaming the drive letter to no avail....that dam mirror H drive is still there. Disk manager only recognizes the x drive but everywhere else..from windows explorer to disk defrag there is that H: drive. Funny thing is, you can read the same or different data of that drive as well as the x drive...and will show differences in data copied!!! Man help me get rid of the H: evil mirror to my normal x: drive.

Thanks in advance

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Dani AI

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Short expert note for — because Disk Management only shows X: while Explorer and other tools expose an H: that mirrors X:, the Mount Manager mappings that Windows keeps in the registry are the next place to investigate. Since already checked Disk Management/CMOS and verified there were no SUBST mappings, a stale or duplicate entry under the registry key that records volume-to-letter mappings can produce a “ghost” letter that Disk Management may not surface.

Suggested troubleshooting flow (backup the registry first):

  • List current mount points and volume GUIDs:
    mountvol
  • If the same Volume{GUID} is shown with both X: and H:, remove the H: mount point:
    mountvol H: /D
  • If mountvol does not show H: but Explorer still does, open Registry Editor and export the key:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

    Then delete the value named \DosDevices\H: (or \??\H: if present). Reboot afterward so Mount Manager rebuilds mappings.

If CHKDSK still runs at boot for that letter, temporarily exclude it from auto-check:

chkntfs /x H:

Then, once the duplicate-letter problem is fixed and the drive is present as X:, run a manual repair:

chkdsk X: /f

Cautions and follow-ups: always export the MountedDevices key before changes and restore the .reg file if letters are reassigned incorrectly. If the H: mapping survives these steps, check for any third‑party software or startup service that creates virtual drives or mounts volumes at boot, and consider running a vendor disk diagnostic if repeated filesystem repairs are required.

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Member Avatar for alc6379

Try clearing the CMOS on your motherboard without the hard drive hooked up-- that may help. Also, does that H: drive show up if you unplug the drive?

Member Avatar for Tekmaven

Open the Command Prompt (Windows XP Dos Prompt), and type the command "subst". Report back what it returns (if it returns anything -> it might say nothing and then return you back to the same prompt you started at).

Member Avatar for Såndoz

Hey thanks for responding,
I cleared cmos and the H drive shows up again with the X drive (same drive). I then reformatted and relabeled and cleared cmos and still get both drive letters. I then unplugged the drive from the mobo and no drive shows up in any program tree. However, every time I boot windows XP pro, I get the chkdsk progroam that runs to check consistency of the drive in question......My only thought is, is my Quantum fireball dying??

Member Avatar for Tekmaven

What is the result of subst?

Member Avatar for Såndoz

Hi,
it just returns me to the prompt line with no information from the subst query.

Member Avatar for alc6379

Look under Disk Management.

Right click on My Computer, select Manage. You should see the H:/X: drive there? Right click on it, and select "Change drive letter and path..." Do you see 2 entries there? You should be able to remove the one you don't want.

Member Avatar for Såndoz

Been there multiple times ....it shows the drive as X: but everwhere else in win xp pro from explorer to defrag routines there is the H: as well. Reformatting doesnt change it.

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