Local Disk (Z:) - unwated partition problem

Hi all,

I have put new 160 gig SATA in my laptop, ran the recovery DVDs on it and then installed the Acronis Disk Director Suite, to organise the partitions in following way:

Disk 1(C with the system
Disk 2(D for data
Documents (F for My Documents / taken from Disk 2

Letter E: was assigned to the DVD drive.

Everything went well and according to the instructions, but after reboot time to time I can see additional partition named: Local Disk (Z with 0MB capaity and 0MB free space in RAW file system type. It can be seen after installing or uninstalling programs, or attaching / disconnecting external drives or flash disks, but permanently in the dialog window of applications that ofer Save or Save As option, I can opt for Local Disk (Z. It is unaccessible and it can not be seen by diskmgmt.msc, nor Acronis suite.

It s a mistery for me, can anybody help me please to get rid of this problem?

Many thanks in advance!!!

Tom

 

Don't know if this is your problem but it sounds like you may have mapped a network drive. Go into windows explorer and click on Tools, disconnect network drive and see if you are able to take it off that way.

 

Hi,

many thanks for the reply. Well, it is kinda wierd, as I have not mapped anything. Here is very short history of what is going on, an dnobody can give an explanation so far:

I put my new 160 gig SATA HDD into my HP nx 9420 notebook. As it comes with OEM XP Pro, I started the recovery process running the boundled DVDs. When finnished, there were two partitions: C: and HP recovery partition. Both of them took cca 100 GB and left the rest unallocated. I have restarted deleted the HP recovery partition via HP menu in a standard way and restarted the computer. After this, there was one partition of 149 GB, which was OK.

I installed the Acronis Disk Suite and created new logical partition of 104 GB leaving 45 gigs for the primary system partition.

Nothing was attached niether mapped to the computer, but suddenly partition Z: appeared in the my COmputer window labeled Local Disk. It reported 0 MB of capacity and 0 MB of free space whith file system: RAW. I just rebooted the computer and the partition seemed to dissapear. But the I noticed that in dialog menus in for exmample Word pad when choosing save or save ass I still am getting the Z: partition offered as well!

Runing diskmgmt resulted in no help as it is not shown there at all, nor Acronis can see that.

I do not know how to get rid of it, or what does it mean? Maybe somebody from the Acronis team can help, as I browsed through the users guide and FAQs and didn find anything.

cheers

Tom

P.S. Yesterday when clicking on the Acronis icon I got the blue screen and the system complewte crash reporting NTLDR missing.... I recovered it through Acrosnis bootable media and my ghost DVDs of the previously installed stuff. Even after deletign all partitions and creating brand new ones, I stil am getting the Z partition.

 

Hi,

I have the same problem, however, it has nothing to do with Acronis Disk Suite. I used Partition Magic 8.

I think this might be an HP thing, because I also have an HP notebook (nc6400). When I got it, it had about 60Gb of unallocated space, which I found extremely weird. Once I formated that and turned it into a logical partition (FAT32), I started getting the Z: drive.

Partition magic says that there is a problem with the file allocation table and supposedly it fixes that error, but the darn thing keeps reappearing.

I will keep looking for sollutions...

 

Hi,

many thanks for the reply, well, I am kinda glad I am not alone. I have tried to have the disk checked and everything, but all the indicators are reporting no errors whatsoever.

I have an HP notebook (nx9420) but actually I have started getting this thing after I exchanged the harddrive from 80GB to 160GB. When I started the recovery process, I have got the system installed on C: and another partition that was used as a restore system partition. ANother cca 60GB left unallocated. I got rid of that recovery partition and then I have finally gotten 149GB split into C system and D logical NTFS.

The Z: partition appears there time to time, sometimes it is not visible, sometimes it is. I thought it has something with Acronis or disk management programs as it appeared after splitting the disk into the partitions.

I will be very thankful for any advices, should you come across any information, and also will try to search more, I will try to contact HP if they know this is a specific thing.

cheers

Tom

 

Well,

I called the HP support, and they reported that there is no way of help from their side, as the third partition appeared to be there after using Acronis. Not that I would say Acronis is doing that, but they said that the third party disk management program can be the reason in general (partition magic as well).

Basically they said, they are supporting only one partition which is system C: on all their notebooks and the recovery partition which they do not recommend to remove, but give the user an option to do so. They do not recommend to split the disk into partitions or do nopt support such process...

so now, we gotta find what is causing the appearance of the Z partition.

 

Download Window Washer (trial) from webroot.com and"Wash" all free space. This might work. If not try to encapsulate "Z" partition into a newly formed partition and then "Wipe" the partition with DD10 then delete the partition. If you are determined to get rid of "Z" when all else failed you could use DD10 in stand alone mode and wipe the entire Hard Disk before reloading the restore disk(s). Where "Z" partition came from could be a synergistic reaction between microsoft, HP and Disk Director 10 (a working hypothesis until someone can pinpoint a more concrete reason). Good Luck with your experimentations.

 

Hi I got it solved! Well, neither way though. The partition Z: appears only when one creates the other partitions logical or any other than primary. I just created second primary partition and it works like a breeze and the Z is gone!!! There is no technical answer (as for me) for the difference between logical and primary in this case. The only limitation is that one can have maximum up to 4 primary partitions on one disk, whereas unlimited amount of logical. I just need two, so I am safe

cheers

Tom

 

Thanks man! I'll give that a shot whenever I get a chance. Hopefully it will work for me as well.

 

100% I believe, cause the recovery partition used by HP on their notebooks is primary too and that gave me the suggestion and tried several times and it works like a breeze. You can use up to four of partitions!!! Good luck!

 

Thank You 137 !!!
I had the same problem:"DD10 found no HD and und unknown drive Z".
My Notebook is also an "HP Compaq nx"(but "6325").
After creating a second partition D: with DD10(2161) as logical drive, I had an unknown drive Z (same as you) and DD10 won't start any more (Error 000101F4 "Keine Festplatte gefunden"/found no hd drive.

Then I made it as you requested:
- delete D: drive
- delete D: partition (all with the build in WinXP tool, because DD didn't start)
- create new partition D: (for my Data) but as primary
=> the drive Z is gone
=> Acronis DD10 starts and run 'ok' (without new installation)

Thank You 137 !!! !!! !!!