Drive letter is assigned for non-existent drives

[Greg]

Hi,

I am having a problem in how my PC recognizes and assigns
storage drives. The drive letters A & G are assigned to
non-existent drives upon booting. I would like to
unassign these letters. I believe this occurred because I
have a USB floppy drive and USB-to-IDE connection that I
have occassionally used. Somehow my PC shows the driver
letters as being assigned even though neither device is
connected. If I click on either drive letter in explorer,
my PC will lock up.

If I attempt to connect the USB floppy, it will be
assigned as the B drive. If I connect the device after
booting and attempt to use the floppy in explorer, the PC
will lock. The only way I can use the floppy (or the USB-
to-IDE connector) is connect them before booting. Once
the PC has booted, then they are available.

I have Windows XP Pro installed on Dell 4600 (865G
chipset) and 2 hard drives & 2 optical drives (CD-RW & DVD-
RW). There is no installed floppy drive.

 

[Guest]

remove the usb host controllers from device manager and it'll force XP to
reinstall all USB hardware from scratch. It should remove any record of the
drives, then you can start again

hope this helps