F drive ? FAT?

  • Thread starter Thread starter RustyM
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RustyM

Dont know where this FAT drive came from. I have always had the typical NTFS
"C" drive since I got this Win XP home edition 3 years ago. This F drive has
98 % free space. I never installed a second drive. the only thing that I
could tihnk of is that one of those flash drives (san disk) was inserted in
my pc months ago and never 'erased' itself. Can I just delete this f drive.
I have no clue what to do. I tried to delete it but there is no option to do
this. I hope that I gave u enough info on this matter. BTW, the files in
thie Local F drive were just Dell files that I recently moved to a diff
folder to save in case I deleted it and caused problems. any ideas?
 
If you have two CD/DVD drives then F would be the next letter available, by
any chance is F the system restore partition?

JS
 
RustyM said:
Dont know where this FAT drive came from. I have always had the typical
NTFS "C" drive since I got this Win XP home edition 3 years ago. This F
drive has 98 % free space. I never installed a second drive. the only
thing that I could tihnk of is that one of those flash drives (san disk)
was inserted in my pc months ago and never 'erased' itself. Can I just
delete this f drive. I have no clue what to do. I tried to delete it but
there is no option to do this. I hope that I gave u enough info on this
matter. BTW, the files in thie Local F drive were just Dell files that I
recently moved to a diff folder to save in case I deleted it and caused
problems. any ideas?
Click to expand...

You say that "the only thing that I could think of is that one of those
flash drives (san disk) was inserted in my pc months ago and never 'erased'
itself" and yet you were able to copy the files of it. If it was a flash
drive with files on it how could you copy them when you claim there is no
longer a flash drive installed. Windows can't remember stuff that good. If
they were Dell files, why would they be on a flash drive?
It's your restore partition or should I say was, and you probably screwed it
up by moving the files.
 
This is probably the Dell Restore Partition or the Dell Utility Partition
which is automatically installed on Dell PCs.
You can use Disk Management and unassign the Drive Letter to this partition.
Or use Tweakui and hide the drive (but then you lose access to that letter
for any drives).
 
I dont know if this fat file is a Dell restore partition or the dell utility
partition. But, the reason I mentioned that if this had anything to do with
a Sandisk flash drive, was because I noticed this supposedly "f" local disk
thing shortly after a relative used my dell with his flash drive to work on
files he needed printed on there.
It was then, that I noticed that such a F file existed.
I had moved whatever files were in there to a new folder in an effort to
delete it-I cant seem to find this folder on my pc. weird cause I dont
remember deleting it. But the fact remains that the "f drive is still there
and there are 2 hidden files in there. They are = a bootlog in notepad, and
another one as a PRV file.
Note= I had bought this dell in 2002 or so, along with another one i keep at
home. The pc at home is normal and has no extra F drive.

" You can use Disk Management and unassign the Drive Letter to this
partition.
Or use Tweakui and hide the drive (but then you lose access to that letter
for any drives).
Click to expand...

DOnt know how to unassign and reassign the drive letter or use Tweakui-
Sorry but dont understand the procedure.
Also, dont care if I lose the letter "f', as g h i and so on can be used for
digital cameras and things. (right??)

someone commented to me this:
Did I happen to plug in a digital camera to the USB port and download some
photos to your computer? The total file size sounds like a 32 MB memory
card. My card reader on my all-in-one printer shows up as drive F in the My
Computer window.

Or should we still assume it is the partition thing?

thanks for ur help. anymore ideas


--
Thanks so very much for your help-! ! ! !
NewScience said:
This is probably the Dell Restore Partition or the Dell Utility Partition
which is automatically installed on Dell PCs.
You can use Disk Management and unassign the Drive Letter to this
partition.
Or use Tweakui and hide the drive (but then you lose access to that letter
for any drives).
Click to expand...
 
FOUND the folder that contains all the files in the Local F disk, that I had
moved to a new folder a while back-They contain lots of files with
extentions like, MDM. they have names like yamaha, video, audio, USB, USB2,
etc (probably totalling at least 30)=Still those other 2 bootlog ones still
remain in the local F . I thought that I had moved everything to this new
folder. but these 2 are hidden.

--
Thanks so very much for your help-! ! ! !
RustyM said:
I dont know if this fat file is a Dell restore partition or the dell
utility partition. But, the reason I mentioned that if this had anything to
do with a Sandisk flash drive, was because I noticed this supposedly "f"
local disk thing shortly after a relative used my dell with his flash drive
to work on files he needed printed on there.
It was then, that I noticed that such a F file existed.
I had moved whatever files were in there to a new folder in an effort to
delete it-I cant seem to find this folder on my pc. weird cause I dont
remember deleting it. But the fact remains that the "f drive is still
there and there are 2 hidden files in there. They are = a bootlog in
notepad, and another one as a PRV file.
Note= I had bought this dell in 2002 or so, along with another one i keep
at home. The pc at home is normal and has no extra F drive.

" You can use Disk Management and unassign the Drive Letter to this
partition.
Or use Tweakui and hide the drive (but then you lose access to that
letter for any drives).
Click to expand...

DOnt know how to unassign and reassign the drive letter or use Tweakui-
Sorry but dont understand the procedure.
Also, dont care if I lose the letter "f', as g h i and so on can be used
for digital cameras and things. (right??)

someone commented to me this:
Did I happen to plug in a digital camera to the USB port and download some
photos to your computer? The total file size sounds like a 32 MB memory
card. My card reader on my all-in-one printer shows up as drive F in the
My Computer window.

Or should we still assume it is the partition thing?

thanks for ur help. anymore ideas
Click to expand...
 
RustyM said:
FOUND the folder that contains all the files in the Local F disk, that I had
moved to a new folder a while back-They contain lots of files with
extentions like, MDM. they have names like yamaha, video, audio, USB, USB2,
etc (probably totalling at least 30)=Still those other 2 bootlog ones still
remain in the local F . I thought that I had moved everything to this new
folder. but these 2 are hidden.
Click to expand...

Sounds like drivers or software that are meant for your motherboard and
accessories. Put the files back in the drive where they were...

- Right click the My Computer icon on your desktop, select Manage in menu.
- In the right window, choose Disk Management
- The right window splits in two, bottom window, find the drive letter F:
and right click within that box somewhere
- Within that menu, choose Change Drive Letter and Paths
- In new window, click the letter F: and choose the button at window bottom,
Remove.
- Click OK, close the Computer Management window. You're DONE.
 
Hi Femaster. I followed your steps but rang into a problem- I did all these
steps:
- Right click the My Computer icon on your desktop, select Manage in menu.
- In the right window, choose Disk Management
- The right window splits in two, bottom window, find the drive letter F:
and right click within that box somewhere
Click to expand...
BUT, when I right clicked on the F (FAT)& this drive in question, all I got
was the "help" option. Just to see if I was doing this correctly, I right
clicked on the NTFS drive and saw that the option "Change Drive Letter and
Paths" was available there. So, I never got to finish up your steps. What do
you suppose is going on.
PS I moved all the files back to the local disk F as you suggested.
thank you hope you can still help.
--
Click to expand...
Thanks so very much for your help-! ! ! !
 
RustyM said:
Hi Femaster. I followed your steps but rang into a problem- I did all these
BUT, when I right clicked on the F (FAT)& this drive in question, all I got
was the "help" option. Just to see if I was doing this correctly, I right
clicked on the NTFS drive and saw that the option "Change Drive Letter and
Paths" was available there. So, I never got to finish up your steps. What do
you suppose is going on.
PS I moved all the files back to the local disk F as you suggested.
thank you hope you can still help.
Click to expand...

OK, lets start with this. Go back to the Disk Management window...

In the ROW that the Drive F: is listed under, what is the designation to the
LEFT of it, i.e, Disk 0, Disk 1, CD-ROM 0, etc? Type everything that is
listed in that box. For example, my main Hard Drive is, "Disk 0", "Basic",
"37.27GB", "Online".

To the RIGHT of that, how many "drives" are listed, Example (mine) is MAIN
(C:), PROGRAMS (D:), PAGE FILE (E:). Is there any mention of "Unallocated
Space"?
 
FeMaster, thanks... here are my findings =
Disk O is basic 37.28 GB online to the left of the box. ----> Then
to the right of that box is (which I beleve the fat file) 31 MB Fat healthy
EISA configuration----> then the box to the right of that one (which I
beleive is the NTFS) is 37.25 GB NFTS healthy active
---------------- then below this starts the list of:

disk 1 removable media (H)....no media
CD rom, dvd rom, etc AND all show no media
---------------
NOW, mine does NOT say anything like this MAIN
(C:), PROGRAMS (D:), PAGE FILE (E:). Is there any mention of "Unallocated
Space"?), NONE of these things show. Just what I showed above. Of course
on the top white bigger box it shows the % of space, capacity, tolerance,
overhead, etc
Click to expand...
This is weird. Now, whats next??
I think u again! ! !
 
Sorry it took so long to reply... If you have replaced all the files to the
partition, then you are good to go. According to my research, the partition
was put there by the computer's manufacturer, I'm not exactly sure why it
has become visible, as it is not supposed to be...

Unfortunately, I'm not finding a solution to you dilemma as to why it's
visible ,and why it has been assigned a drive letter, as according to me
reading, EISA Configuration partitions are supposed to never have a drive
letter assigned to them, and Windows 2000/XP is supposed to natively know
this, and not allow it to happen...

Sorry I couldn't help any further. I've ran into a wall.
 
your help & time was greatly appreciated, nonetheless. I will use info
retrieved here to hopefully narrow down a future solution.THanks!
 
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