Strange new drive appeared after upgrade to Windows 8

I have recently upgraded from 7 Ultimate to 8 Pro. In backup and defrag I see this drive \\?\Volume{95......}

I can not see it in Windows explorer even if I show hidden files but if I type in the address in the run window it takes me to the root of the C drive which (it seems) is empty.

Does anyone know what it is and if it is a problem? I only have C drive connected

Edit: I deleted this value from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices but after reboot another drive was added:

\??\Volume{3d01297b-52a4-11e2-be73-806e6f6e6963}

I have reverted back the registry backup I made so deleting from registry does not help. The install was a clean install after formatting the drive, not an upgrade.

I'd appreciate it if anyone has any idea.

Added disk management screen if it helps, thanks adam

Most PC's have a "System Reserved" or "Recovery" drive.

On mine it is D:\

with C:\ being Local Disk...

Maybe it's a code name for one of those?

Good luck!

Aren't restore points named something like that?

I haven't seen anything like that on my Win8 PC. Did you delete all partitions on the hard drive before you installed it?

I did a clean install after upgrading from 7. I formatted C and the Lenovo recovery drive which was a hidden drive with letter Q during this process. After the upgrade I merged the 2 as Win 8 doesn't want a recovery drive as far as I know. Now I only have C drive except for these 2 situations - system restore and defrag. It is a bit odd - the drive letters look a bit like some sort of software installed package but as yet I've not installed anything except Office and TN5250.

I also deleted all restore points (turned off and on protection in system properties) and then recreated a new one but it made no difference.

Welcome to EightForums, adamf.

The Leveno or OEM participation is a different type of partition than a Windows system partition. You were able to see the OEM partition in disk management?

I didn't reformat the system partition (I don't think you can actually). I reformatted C drive and Q (Lenovo win 7 recovery partition) as par of the upgrade process. After 8 was installed I had C and D and then I deleted D and merged it into C as D was the old Q.

Does that make sense?

Hello Adam,
Any fix to your problem?
I got the same new volume after upgrading to Win 8.1 from Win 8.
It starts with \\?\Volume{ ... and it is heavily fragmented but Disk Optimization cannot fix it.
I would appreciate any hint.

The Q drive was a different type of Partition/Volume.
If you can find a copy of PTedit.exe - then change that partition type to 07
Then it will become a regular partition & windows can deal with it.


link good for about 1 day http://sdrv.ms/H2L4fb my skydrive ptedit.exe originally came from forums.lenovo.com member.


Here is some info at Lenovo How to work with the Q and S partitions on ThinkPads - ThinkPad X200, X200 Tablet, X301, R400, R500, SL300, SL400, SL500, T400, T500, W500, W700.

I'm unsure what happens exactly, when you merged that drive to C. But do know that, hah, was bad move :huh:

Looks like a mapped network drive. It could be made by your Virtual Drive program.

That will explain why you cannot defrag it. The Program you are using for mounting it, may actually be creating the drive in memory.

Thank for all suggestions but no luck.
I do not have any virtual drive program. The laptop is fairly new, have it less than a month and was almost fresh upgrade to win 8.1.
What a joke are those from Microsoft!!! If you are a doctor and do such a sloppy job you would be in jail in no time.

It may be a recovery partition then. I've never seen a partition labelled like that, it's labelled like a network drive.