Drive letters

[Marv]

In a Visual Basic program I have a routine that displays all of the on
drives on the system. The ones found are C,d,e,f, g,h,I,j & y.
However, Windows Explorer only shows the c,d,e,f, & y. In the VB
program if I attempt to access g,h,I,& j I get a program error that says
the cannot be accessed.

Anyone have a thought as to where these "phantom" drives are coming from
and if and how can I get rid of them.

Marv

 

[Paul]

In a Visual Basic program I have a routine that displays all of the on
drives on the system. The ones found are C,d,e,f, g,h,I,j & y.
However, Windows Explorer only shows the c,d,e,f, & y. In the VB
program if I attempt to access g,h,I,& j I get a program error that says
the cannot be accessed.

Anyone have a thought as to where these "phantom" drives are coming from
and if and how can I get rid of them.

Marv

You have a USB based memory card reader. Those create four phantom drive
letters, even when media is not inserted in them.

The card readers come in 3.5" and 5" form factors.

http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/20-223-103-03.jpg

Being USB based, you may find a cable running inside the computer, from
the back of the unit, to a motherboard header. The cable isn't likely to
be as fat and impressive looking as this one. If you unplug the thing
from the motherboard end, make some notes of how it goes back. There
could be a "keying" pin in the 2x5 pattern, but document it anyway when
you want to plug it back in.

http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/20-223-103-07.jpg

Perhaps there is some programmatic way to tell which drive letters
belong to a device like that. If you're distributing your program,
you'll also have to handle cases where more than one of those drives
is present.

Paul

 

[Seth]

In a Visual Basic program I have a routine that displays all of the on
drives on the system. The ones found are C,d,e,f, g,h,I,j & y. However,
Windows Explorer only shows the c,d,e,f, & y. In the VB program if I
attempt to access g,h,I,& j I get a program error that says the cannot be
accessed.

Anyone have a thought as to where these "phantom" drives are coming from
and if and how can I get rid of them.

Like Paul said, probably a memory card reader. By default Windows will only
show these in explorer when "not empty" (there is a card inserted. You can
in the options for Windows Explorer tell it to show even when empty so it
will match what VB is showing.