Quick Guide to Fixing Hard Drive Still Appears After Removal

Occasionally, your USB flash drive or internal/external hard drive still appears after removal on Windows. If this problem bothers you, you can try the proven workarounds in this MiniTool guide to address it.

Phenomenon: USB Drive/Hard Drive Still Appears After Removal on Windows

Normally, when you remove an internal or removable disk from your computer, the system will detect that the device has been disconnected, and the disk will no longer be displayed in File Explorer and Disk Management. At the same time, the drive letter occupied by the disk will be released for other disks to use. However, sometimes you may find that your hard drive still appears after removal.

You may see the disconnected disk in File Explorer but will be prompted to insert a disk when you try to access it. Or, it will show up in Disk Management but have no disk capacity and cannot be accessed. In the case of this fake disk, you should save any current work and restart the computer to make it recognize that the disk has been removed. If this does not help, you can implement the following workarounds.

How to Fix Hard Drive/USB Drive Still Showing After Disconnect

Fix 1. Rescan Disks

If your hard drive or USB drive still showing after disconnect, you can rescan the disks in Disk Management to let the system redetect and recognize all connected storage devices. In Disk Management, click Action and Rescan Disks sequentially.

Fix 2. Re-assign a Drive Letter & Reboot the Computer

Reassigning a new drive letter to the problematic disk and restarting the computer can make the system refresh the hardware connection and eliminate the incorrectly displayed disk.

Step 1. Right-click the Start button and choose Disk Management to open it.

Step 2. Right-click the target disk and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths from the context menu.

Step 3. In the pop-up window, click Change, choose a different drive letter from the drop-down list, and click OK. Apply this change in each window, and then restart your computer and check if the problematic disk disappears.

Fix 3. Modify the Registry

MountPoints2 is a key in the Windows registry that stores information about the drives that have been mounted on the system. You can delete this registry to remove the information it contains. When you connect your disks again, the system will regenerate this information automatically.

Tips:

Although deleting MountPoints2 usually does not cause serious system problems, it is recommended that you back up this individual registry key or the entire registry just in case. After that, you can follow the steps below to delete the MountPoints2 registry.

Step 1. Press the Windows R key combination to open Run.

Step 2. Type regedit in the input box and press Enter. If the UAC window pops up, select Yes to continue.

Step 3. In the top address bar, copy and paste the following location and press Enter:

ComputerHKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerMountPoints2

Step 4. Right-click the MountPoints2 registry and choose Delete from the context menu.

Step 5. Restart your computer and verify if the disconnected USB drive/hard drive still appears.

Fix 4. Uninstall the Disk Manually

Apart from the approaches above, you can also remove your disk forcibly from Device Manager. Here are the operation steps.

Step 1. Right-click the Windows logo button from the taskbar and click Device Manager to open it.

Step 2. Double-click Disk drives to expand this category.

Step 3. Check if your USB drive or internal/external hard disk is here. If yes, right-click on it and choose Uninstall device from the context menu.

Now you should know how to resolve the problem of “hard drive still appears after removal”.

Bonus Time: USB Drive/Hard Drive Data Recovery Software Recommended

In this era of widespread use of various data storage devices, disk failure or data loss happens from time to time. If you unfortunately delete or lose files, you may consider using MiniTool Power Data Recovery to recover data. It is adept at restoring all types of files, including documents, videos, photos, audio, emails, archives, databases, and other files from all file storage devices.

If this is the first time you use it, you can try the free edition which supports 1 GB of free secure data recovery.

Wrapping Things Up

Based on user feedback and my personal experience, I’ve identified four effective methods for efficiently removing stubborn disks that persistently appear on your computer. Hope the information above can help you out.

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