Windows 10: Phantom USB Drive

Both my Win 10 Pro (production system) and Win 10 Pro Preview versions*list a USB drive (each install is on a separate SSD). There is no USB drive connected and the status code, from what I find, says it is a*"NET" device. I don't have any network connected USB devices. If I uninstall it, in the Device Manger, it will come back either on a reboot or just scan for new hardware.

I posted this before, not on this forum, and never got anything resolved. I had this listed with an old motherboard. I recently upgraded my system to new hardware but the USB device is still listed.

Here are some screenshots from the Device Manger of the Preview system. *My production system shows the same thing.









**

:)

 

Ghost USB drive detected

Do you have a card reader perhaps with a card in it ?

My card reader does that until I update the driver to an older driver in device manager.

If it really is a usb flash drive, plug the drive in and in device manager

Click on the menu item for View Show Hidden Devices.

At Disk Drives, you should see your thumb drive and its manufactures name/size.

Down at the bottom of device manager... USB Controllers expand that

You'll probably see several usb drives there, one will be darkened .. that's your E drive hopefully.

Pay very careful attention to that E drives location.. exactly which it is there.

Eject your usb drive and I think you know where to delete the phantom drives from now.

 

Windows 10 - Disk drive showing as floppy drive

I installed Windows 10 this afternoon & have just found that i have a phantom floppy drive showing in My PC (My Computer) but not my disk drive.

I went to device manager & the disk drive is there with all drivers installed, operating correctly. But there is also a phantom floppy disk drive installed.

I have tried uninstalling both sets of drives & rebooting but no luck.

Any suggestions?

 

My thought would be it may not necessarily be an actual USB drive but maybe a card reader in the case as many computers are coming with now, particularly Notebooks. I think the PCI 'connections' on the motherboards are also involved with the USB ports.

 

There is no card reader. This is with two desktop systems (hardware). It happened with the old hardware - an ASRock Z77 motherboard with an i7 3770 CPU with a triple boot Win7/Win10/Win10 Preview. I now have an ASUS Maximus VIII motherboard with an i7 6700K CPU. The production system reused the same OS drive (no reinstall). The Insider Preview version was a new, clean, install. Both show the same thing.

 

Do you have a printer with a card reader on it?

 

All I was pointing out is that the same problem on 2 different motherboards suggests there's an outside influence, hardware that existed in the case or something plugged in. But sometimes one has to install the drivers disc that usually comes with a new motherboard to get around problems that the OS creates or can't fix. I find in repairing that booting to a Linux LiveDVD can help pinpoint issues.

 

In Device Manager select View->Devices by Connection to see the parent/child relationship between devices. I'd expect a USB disk to have either
> USB Mass Storage or
> USB Composite device as its parent

Look up and display the hardware ID for the parent device and tell us what it is.

/* EDIT */
A PCI Simple Controller may also be a parent device. If so, check its hardware id as well

/* edit 2*/
corrected above to indicate hardware ID is what's requested

 

There is no card reader in my Wi-Fi connected printer and no card reader in my computer case. And, the case is a new case, different from the older system.

Look at the screen shots I posted. It says "On USB Mass Storage Device".

It also shows up in Disk Management.

 

Hardware ID's as requested. As I previously noted this has shown up on two different PC hardware.
I had thought at one time that maybe Macrium Reflect was installing something, but the Insider preview version, which was a complete clean install does not have Macrium Reflect installed, or the printer, etc. Just basic Windows install.

 

The parent device (USB Mass Storage) is a JMicron USB to SATA adapter.

Do you have an open SATA enclosure connected? Or wonder if one of the SATA ports on your computer is provided by this USB/SATA adapter. In either case, I believe it's the USB/SATA adapter that's generating the "phantom" device. It's an "unitialized" disk until you connect a SATA drive to the port

 

I don't have any "jMicron" USB to SATA adapters. I do have an external USB 3.0 Startech to SATA adapter that I can plug in SATA drives to. However, when I connect that, it shows up as a separate device on my Win 10 Production system, the Phantom USB device still shows up as the screen shots show. I don't think its that as the Insider Preview installation showed the Phantom drive and the Startech device has never been plugged into the Insider Preview installation.

It works the same way, either with the old complete system or the new complete system. If I uninstall it in the Device Manager then either reboot or scan for new hardware it will show up again.

 

I'll bet your Startech device is built around aforementioned JMicron device. I think ComputerGeek has essentially nailed the operative cause and effect here. Why do I say this? I had a system about 2 years ago with a motherboard with an integrated JMicron device of the same kind, and it did the same thing.
HTH,
--Ed--

 

I "Thought" I found it. I connected the Startech so I could see what it does (it just shows the hard drive under disc drives in the Device Manager as any other hard drive). I then went to "Safely Remove Hardware" to remove it. I noticed there was a "USB to ATA/ATAPI bridge" listed in the Safely Remove Hardware. It has been there for a long time as I assumed it was a "real" device. I "removed" it and the Phantom USB device went away. I scanned for new hardware and it didn't come back. BUT I rebooted and checked after Windows started and its back again. This "USB to ATA/ATAPI bridge" is the key, but what is it? Its not hardware specific as it was on the old PC system and now showing up on the new system. The only "common" items are the SSD drive and a 1.5TB hard drive that I use for my recording system storage.

 

Hardware IDs are burned into the firmware of a plug and play device by the vendor. All I can tell you is Windows reports its a JMicron controller. Hardware ID of USB\VID_152D&PID_2329

• VID_152D means it's a JMicron chip
• PID_232D indicates a JMicron USB/SATA bridge

Feel free to look up that hardware ID yourself.


It must appear as a USB Mass Storage device because Windows driver search probably didn't find a driver match for either of the hardware IDs but did find a match on one of the device's compatible IDs. Click Device->Details Compatible IDs to see them.

Can you do a snap shot of Device Manager View->Devices by Connection showing parent/child relationships of the device. in question. If it connects to the PCI bus it's a real chip on your m/b (maybe packaged into a product under someone else's name). If it connects to a "Virtual" bus, then it's a virtual device being created by software you have installed.

/* EDIT */
just saw your last post. and see there is a bridge. In your snap shot can you show the full parent/child relationship for the bridge as well? And curious what's the hardware ID of the bridge:?