How can I eliminate a mysterious 19.6 GB "Drive Z:" that has spontaneously appeared on my individual personal desktop computer. (Windows XP Professional SP2)

It appears in the list of logical drives in Windows Esplorer. No files are vidible in it in Windows Explorer, but the Properties display shows 11.7 GB of files in it.

However, this Drive Z: is NOT seen by either the Windows Management Console (Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer Management / Disk Management), or by Partition Magic 8.

I haven't figured out which of 3 HDDs it's on.

How can I eliminate it?

Thank you.

Edited October 23, 200718 yr by scott14

have you tried to use Partition Magic rescue disk? myabe rebooting and working on partitions before Windows loads, could do the job...

Is it a mounted volume by any chance??

magicfly

I'll try your suggestion. Thank you.

unnameduser

No it's not a mounted volume.

Try right-click on the drive and choose Disconnect. It might be a network drive.

EDIT: or it is a camera or other USB device.

Edited October 23, 200718 yr by Tripredacus

Solved.

It seems to have been something related to Acronis.

When I deleted the Acronis Secure Zone, the mysterious Z: drive disappeared.

Thank you all for your good suggestions and willingness to help.

Also say goodbye to any recovery information that you had with acronis....

The acronis secure zone is used kinda like a recovery partition to restore the computer... because the files are written in a non-standard format it 'looks' as if the drive is blank in windows explorer.