How to really (!) release blocked drive letters (locked by unknown device) ?

[David Welch]

As you can see in the following snapshot there are drive letters S: and Y: which are currently
locked/blocked by some (unknown) devices/drivers. They are not selectable in DiskManagement:

http://www.picamatic.com/show/2009/04/24/10/37/3388659_919x697.png

I guess they are locked by some previously executed tools. These drive letters were not
(completely) released when the associated drives were unmounted.
WinExplorer on the other hand does NOT show these drives any more.
Ok, this is probably a bug in these tools but I cannot change it.

So is there a (brutal) way to force WinXP to release the drive letters anyway?

Are these drive letters blocked by drivers or by some Registry entries?
Who "owns" drive letters in detail?

David

 

[Pegasus [MVP]]

As you can see in the following snapshot there are drive letters S: and Y:
which are currently
locked/blocked by some (unknown) devices/drivers. They are not selectable
in DiskManagement:

http://www.picamatic.com/show/2009/04/24/10/37/3388659_919x697.png

I guess they are locked by some previously executed tools. These drive
letters were not
(completely) released when the associated drives were unmounted.
WinExplorer on the other hand does NOT show these drives any more.
Ok, this is probably a bug in these tools but I cannot change it.

So is there a (brutal) way to force WinXP to release the drive letters
anyway?

Are these drive letters blocked by drivers or by some Registry entries?
Who "owns" drive letters in detail?

David

Do this:
- Click Start / Run
- Type the three letters cmd
- Click OK
- Type these commands:
fsutil fsinfo drives >c:\test.txt{Enter}
fsutil fsinfo drivetype S: >>c:\test.txt{Enter}
dir S:\ >> c:\test.txt{Enter}
subst >>c:\test.txt{Enter}
net use >>c:\test.txt{Enter}
mountvol >>c:\test.txt{Enter}
notepad c:\test.txt{Enter}
- Paste what you see into your response.

 

[John Wunderlich]

(e-mail address removed) (David Welch) wrote in

As you can see in the following snapshot there are drive letters
S: and Y: which are currently locked/blocked by some (unknown)
devices/drivers. They are not selectable in DiskManagement:

http://www.picamatic.com/show/2009/04/24/10/37/3388659_919x697.png

I guess they are locked by some previously executed tools. These
drive letters were not (completely) released when the associated
drives were unmounted. WinExplorer on the other hand does NOT show
these drives any more. Ok, this is probably a bug in these tools
but I cannot change it.

So is there a (brutal) way to force WinXP to release the drive
letters anyway?

Are these drive letters blocked by drivers or by some Registry
entries? Who "owns" drive letters in detail?

Use "TweakUI" to see if these drives have been disabled.
TweakUI -> My Computer -> Drives

TweakUI available at:
<http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/Downloads/powertoys/Xppowertoys.mspx>

HTH,
John

 

[Uwe Sieber]

As you can see in the following snapshot there are drive letters S: and Y: which are currently
locked/blocked by some (unknown) devices/drivers. They are not selectable in DiskManagement:

http://www.picamatic.com/show/2009/04/24/10/37/3388659_919x697.png

J and Q are missing too...

I guess they are locked by some previously executed tools. These drive letters were not
(completely) released when the associated drives were unmounted.
WinExplorer on the other hand does NOT show these drives any more.
Ok, this is probably a bug in these tools but I cannot change it.

So is there a (brutal) way to force WinXP to release the drive letters anyway?

I've made a commandline tool for this:
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/drivetools_e.html#deletedosdevice

If you scroll up a bit you find ListDosDevices which may
show the name of the kernel object which is behind the
drive letter. I'm curious of the culprit


Uwe