logical removable drive created that does not exist nor should it!

Can anyone tell me how to remove a removable disk drive that does not physically exist in my system? Therefore, I'm certain it is a virtual removable disk drive - which, for all intensive purposes, is just software.

Windows has allocated virtual address space for this device, possibly when making modifications to the system (i.e. creating a new file, reinstalling software - just about anything you can think of, of course). I do not seek answers that involve doing a dirty or clean install or formatting of any kind. Obviously, those are conceivable and logical solutions to start with, yes.

Perhaps, someone could point me to the right section of the registry that stores such information on this matter. In short, I expect solutions that explicity involve the registry, though I'm sure some of you out there can, and will, surprise me.

Furthermore, solutions such as repairing and backing up the registry will not work either, as I have tried both and they have failed miserably. My registry is very, very corrupt, for the scanreg/fix stopped at about 75%, unable to continue the process. Do not confuse this registry corruption with this virtual removable disk drive, as this corruption is due to a completely separate issue and does not overlay into this removable disk drive business. Besides, this virtual removable disk drive has been on my system for months, well over a year perhaps. I cannot even find the drivers for this device; I don't think they exist.

I have no backup of my registry data stored anywhere on any system, other than the ones provided in the 5-day backup cycle - which did not work. And no tricks involving the latest /cab will work either, according to my knowledge.

I thought of a probable solution, in that I a tool like Registry First Aid could fix it. But I wonder if there is some other way.

Oh, I defaulted my CMOS configuration; so, the only thing that could POSSIBLY eliminate this problem is updating the firmware of my BIOS, or even installing an older version, most likely the original firmware version, could remedy the problem. However, I have not proceeded with these steps yet.

I HAD a dual boot on my system, well over a year ago,and I believe I left the partitions as they were. In other words, I just deleted one of the operating systems - Windows 2000 - and kept the other one. I don't recall, but I think that either the process of creating partitions, whether you consider one parition or all of them, or the dual boot of Windows 98se and Windows 2000 some- how created this virtual device.

Maybe the installation disk had a tiny bug in it, due to the device not being harmful to my system, going under "the radar ". It's certainty feasible that, with all of the various type of crashes that can occur with Win98se (i.e. GPF, BSOD, illegal operations, etc...), any number of those could have been due to this virtual removable disk drive which doesn't exist.

Or it's also possible that, considering many people can encounter errors (sometimes common) when implementing a dual boot, the virtual removable disk drive was somehow created. If anyone can explain how, just so I can understand the theory, I'd appreciate it.

However, I installed Windows 2000 and Windows 98se in separate logical drives. And I NEVER once transferred files from NTFS to FAT32 or FAT32 to NTFS, either. In addition, I installed Windows 98se first and then Windows 2000. So, while anything is possible, it is unlikely that the dual boot was the problem (but not the partitions).

If anybody has any suggestions, I would REALLY, REALLY appreciate it. Thank you very much for reading this long rant.

side note:

1) I have a corrupt registry, possibly circling, but definitely involving javascript. This was observed when I tried to open a function in javascript on cokemusic.com. Other than reformating - high-level and low-level - my partitions (repartitioning) and/or hard drives or doing a dirty or clean install of windows 98se, there must be something else I can do.
It could be due to my anti-virus, from AVG, which was just installed a few days ago. And this registry corruption was observed at about ROUGHLY the same time. So, the anti-virus software may or may not be the problem. On top of that, I didn't have a anti-virus on my computer for a while, and I noticed a virus got in. One can speculate that this virus did some damage to my registry. Of course, I got rid of the virus.

2) Also, when I tried to open the winxp iso file in alcohol 120%, it didn't open. Then all of a sudden, the autorun kicked in, practically out of nowhere, very unexpectedly. I noticed that a logical (virtual) optical device was present in My Computer, noted as "J" (because the Removable Disk is "I "). Somehow, the operating system created this new logical device when I clicked on the iso file. I'm not sure, but maybe, again, my anti-virus could have something to do with this issue.

At the same time, the OS allocated physical address space to device J by taking away that address space from device H (my burner). So, J became a true device (it became the burner) and H became the virtual device. During this time, the J drive said that the iso file was "loaded ". I put it in quotes because there was no files loaded into the cd drive, although there may have been a blank disk in there or not at all. It should be noted that after I burned the iso file onto a cd, the iso file still appeared in J. The newly ripped cd remained in the burner drive (currently J), at this time.

It's confusing becasue I don't remember if the file appeared in the J drive before I burned it or after. Actually, I think the former is correct. Even still, after the disk was burned, the J drive still showed that a cd was loaded in (in other words, you could read the volume label of the cd and see the icon for the winxp iso file). I rebooted my computer and I checked My Computer again.

I noticed that the H drive was no longer virtual; it was allocated physical address space, which is what I wanted (H drive is now the burner - what it was originally). The J drive, though, became virtual, which should be of no surprise. It should be noted that the J drive appeared in in my Device Manager, with the name "AVX CD/DVD-ROM ", but the I drive (the virtual removable disk drive device) was nowhere to be found. I actually deleted this AVX driver and rebooted. During the boot up of Windows, the OS was building driver information and automatically reinstalled J again.

Then I noticed that a SCSI controller was installed in Device Manager. There's just one problem: I don't have a SCSI controller or any SCSI devices installed in my system, whatsoever. I also don't have any form of RAID, just for the sake of saying it. I proceeded to delete the SCSI controller, and I noticed that the "AVX CD/DVD-ROM" driver no longer appeared in the optical drive section of Device Manager. This foolish OS installed a logical drive and a controller that were both SCSI, due to the elimination of the controller subsequently deleting the device information for the AVX CD/DVD-ROM (the J drive). Yet, both don't exist in a physical sense.

And what was even more baffling is that, when the AVX CD/DVD-ROM (J drive) was designated as a burner and given physcial address space for that instant of time, I was able to interact with it. I can't put this whole thing together because that would mean the OS trapped to the hardware and contacted a SCSI controller to commonicate with a SCSI device and write SCSI device drivers to a EIDE device that is in contact with a EIDE controller.

I'm a student Computer Engineer and Electrical Engineer; so, it's only a matter of time before I figure out how that is possible. Maybe the scenario I painted is wrong, but the OS did allow me to interact with a device that it designated (for a brief moment of time) as a SCSI device. That much is true.

So anyway, going back to the Device Manager, I went into my cmos configuration and defaulted my settings. I booted up into windows and noticed that the J drive in My Computer was gone! Just as a double check, the Device Manager also didn't have any informatin about SCSI controllers or anything of the sort.

But I'm not sure if the cmos defaulting did the trick. It could have been the deleting of the SCSI controller (and the logical drive, obviously) or both. One would think that this logical drive would show up in the CMOS configuration, just as any logical drive would. But, I assure you, this is no ordinary logical drive, oh no. Matter of fact, the I drive (the virtual Removable Disk drive device) doesn't show up here either. I almost certain that this J device acted as plug and play (I think all SCSI devices are, no? It's late, so forgive me if I forget something like that). And what was interesting about that was the driver automatically was set up by Windows - again, the first time I deleted just the AVG driver - just after the window that displays "building driver information" completed.

The point of this HUGE rant is who can tell me what was the solution (I know, I know, it sounds like an exam question or something)? Can someone logically explain to me which solution worked and why? It's too bad that I deleted the SCSI controller driver (which doesn't exist at the hardware level; that is, it's logical) and defaulted the BIOS; otherwise, I wouldn't have to write this in the middle of the night.

Thank you for anyone who read. I hope everyone is able to interpret all the words that I typed correctly. I apologize for those who are scratching their heads because my sentences don't make sense or locate contradictions. I'm not a humanities major. Again, any help with ANYTHING would be greatly appreicated. Thanks again.

Jeff

 

About the Scanreg /fix problem, is your System.Dat file larger than 9 mb? If so, this is the problem here, there is an issue with a System.Dat file larger than 9 mb. I am not familiar with First Aid, but you might be interested in Regcleaner. When installed and run, the first page that appears is a listing of every software installed and software uninstalled but still has an entry. I would start with removing any that you know are no longer installed. Then I would go to the toolbar at Tools\Registry Cleaner\Do Them All.

 

Thank you for the advice. I checked my system.dat file,and it is only about 2MB. I would really appreicate it if you could tell me why it's a problem for the system.dat file to be over 9MB. Also, the registry cleaner looks pretty good. Thanks for that.

I was also thinking of manually changing my system.dat and user.dat files, a la Win 95. Ya know, renaming the current ones to .old and copying and renaming the .1st to .dat. But I think that that solution is exclusively for Win 95. I don't recall why, though.

Also, I should mention that in the sidenotes, apparenty the SCSI controller, named AXWHISKY, is still on my computer, even though the AVG CD/DVD-ROM driver for it (also SCSI - for the virtual J drive) is gone. Very perplexing, indeed.