Solved Ghost drive I: shows up in my PC

jumanji · 2026-07-28T07:00:50-0400

Today I notice there is a Ghost CD drive I: in "This PC" (Dell Inspiron 3280 AIO running Windows 11 Home). It does not show up in Disk Management. It does not show up in Device Manager. I haven't run any program that creates a Virtual CD drive. How do I get rid of it?

kelper · 2026-07-28T07:30:20-0400

Right click on it and choose 'eject'.

spapakons · 2026-07-28T07:31:45-0400

Looks like a virtual CD-ROM like when you mount an ISO (open it with File Explorer). Try to right-click on this drive and select Eject. If it was a virtual CD-ROM it should disappear.

PS: @kelper you beat me to this

XxXxX · 2026-07-28T07:34:16-0400

according to disk management Drive: I is a removable drive.
best of luck Steve ..

jumanji · 2026-07-28T07:45:59-0400

spapakons said:
Looks like a virtual CD-ROM like when you mount an ISO (open it with File Explorer). Try to right-click on this drive and select Eject. If it was a virtual CD-ROM it should disappear.

PS: @kelper you beat me to this

Hmmm... I forgot to write it. When I rightclick, and "Ëject", I only get this message "An error occurred while ejecting'CD Drive (I:)'.

spapakons · 2026-07-28T08:01:12-0400

Quick solution, but not perfect: Right-click on This PC and select Manage to open Computer Management. Then click on Disk Management. Find this CD-ROM, right-click on it and then select Change drive letter and paths. Remove the drive letter and it should disappear from This PC. However, this only hides the issue, doesn't fix it. Anyone else?

PS: Just remembered, you said it doesn't show in Disk Management. It must be some Registry corruption. Right-click on the start button and select Terminal (Admin) or Command Prompt (Admin), whatever you see. Then execute these commands and restart your computer:

Code:

Dism.exe/online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
 sfc/scannow
 Dism/Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
 sfc/scannow

antspants · 2026-07-28T08:09:58-0400

See if it's anywhere in device manager.

Press Win + R > devmgmt.msc
In Device Manager, click View > Show hidden devices
Expand DVD/CD-ROM drives
Right‑click the phantom device > Uninstall device
Expand Storage controllers > remove any suspicious virtual controller

andrew129260 · 2026-07-28T08:18:12-0400

Did you try a simple restart?

hader · 2026-07-28T08:25:32-0400

It's not a ghost but a virtual drive.
Normally if you doubleclick on an .ISO, Windows will mount this .ISO and it will show up as a (virtual) Drive. Upon ejecting it is will disappear again.

You won't see this under Device Manager because it is not a physical drive. (you may also try inside Device Manager: "Show hidden devices") If you click on it, is it empty? You may try ejecting it by rightclick-eject.

If it refuses and the drive does not contain any data that is a sign that some third party software has created this drive. There are many like; I have Daemon-Tools and I can create an empty virtual drive. Windows sees the drive in explorer but I also can't remove this drive by using Windows because this (in my case) Daemon-Tools is using a custom SCSI/DT/IDE virtual bus driver that bypasses standard Windows volume logic. I must use (in my case) Daemon-Tools to remove this device. Maybe something is also happening by an other company's version of Daemon-tools where you were not aware of. Hunt down that program and use it to remove that drive. (CMD as admin; mountvol I: /P or /R will give an error. Means: Windows is not in control of this device.)

kelper · 2026-07-28T08:33:05-0400

Does it show in DiskPart? Open a command prompt and type diskpart or DiskPart and ENTER, the type list disk. Copy and paste the output.

antspants said:
See if it's anywhere in device manager.

Press Win + R > devmgmt.msc
In Device Manager, click View > Show hidden devices
Expand DVD/CD-ROM drives
Right‑click the phantom device > Uninstall device
Expand Storage controllers > remove any suspicious virtual controller

OP said in post#1 " It does not show up in Disk Management. It does not show up in Device Manager."

spapakons · 2026-07-28T09:02:58-0400

This indicated some system file or Registry corruption. For fixing system file issues he can run the commands I posted in my previous post. To fix Registry issues he can use a utility such as CCleaner. If you use that one do two-three scans to make sure no more Registry errors appears. It usually takes at least two scans to delete them all.

CCleaner Makes Your Computer Faster & More Secure | Official Website

CCleaner is the number-one tool for cleaning your PC. It protects your privacy and makes your computer faster and more secure! Download it FREE today.

www.ccleaner.com

jumanji · 2026-07-28T09:27:44-0400

spapakons said:
.............PS: Just remembered, you said it doesn't show in Disk Management. It must be some Registry corruption. Right-click on the start button and select Terminal (Admin) or Command Prompt (Admin), whatever you see. Then execute these commands and restart your computer:

Code:

Dism.exe/online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup sfc/scannow Dism/Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth sfc/scannow

..........

Here are the results of Sfc/scannow - Windows Resource Protection did not find any Integrity violations
DISM-Scanhealth: No component store corruption detected

Do you still want me to run DISM -Restore health?

jumanji · 2026-07-28T09:30:29-0400

Device Manager - View hidden devices does not show any CD DVD ROM drives

spapakons · 2026-07-28T09:36:26-0400

Do you have any application that creates virtual drives? You have to open it and remove it from here as another fellow suggested.

kelper · 2026-07-28T09:38:22-0400

spapakons said:
Do you have any application that creates virtual drives? You have to open it and remove it from here as another fellow suggested.

OP has already said he doesn't!

jumanji · 2026-07-28T09:53:05-0400

spapakons said:
Do you have any application that creates virtual drives? You have to open it and remove it from here as another fellow suggested.

OK, I found out that Ultra ISO is the culprit;. I could Right click on the CDROM drive.> More options> UltraIso > Mount, mounted an ISO. Right click and Eject the ISO got dismounted but the CDROM drive did not vanish.

I hadn't used Ultra ISO for the last so many years, Why it has suddenly woken up and created a virtual drive without doing anything on UltraISO , I do not know.

I will now invoke the program - I have totally forgotten how to use UltraISO

- and check whether I can delete the CD ROM drive.

spapakons · 2026-07-28T10:43:52-0400

Probably some update to Ultra ISO was installed and created a virtual drive by default "for convenience".

jumanji · 2026-07-28T11:23:48-0400

Hmmmmm................. I had to take the help of AI to delete the virtual drive

To delete or remove a virtual CD drive created by UltraISO in Windows 11, you must change the virtual drive count configuration inside the software settings.
Open UltraISO as an administrator (right-click the app shortcut and select Run as administrator).
Click on Options in the top menu bar.
Select Configuration from the dropdown menu.
Click on the Virtual Drive tab at the top of the settings window.
Locate the Number of drives dropdown menu.
Change the selection to None.
Click OK to apply and close. The virtual drive will disappear from File Explorer.

And so I did and the virtual drive vanished.

I am still wondering how all of a sudden today the virtual drive appeared.. I hadn't touched UltraISO (paid version) for years.

Thanks to @spapakons ,@kelper, @XxXxX , @antspants @andrew129260 ,@hader, for chipping in and helping me to regain my composure. I was really shocked by this event

.

spapakons · 2026-07-28T13:58:36-0400

Like I said probably some update enabled the virtual drive "for convenience". If I remember correctly, Daemon Tools does that. After installation it creates a virtual drive which I immediately delete.

Solved Ghost drive I: shows up in my PC

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