Another answer can be, a special software like something from Adobe uses hidden sectors for copyprotection. This kind of information is mostly stored in the free sectors after an MBR bootblock. But in this case it's unusual a drive letter was assigned.
If it's not possible to remove E: , boot into safe mode and try again to remove it. After the E: is removed, check all your siftware to be sure all is working as expected.
syntoh
Please run:
DiskParInfo.bat - Click here to go to the BSOD batch repository to download and run this batch file.
I found that I had a Macrium Reflect 7 that had installed 3 years ago. I updated it and it contains much more information about E:
If I interpret this right, Disk 1 is my SSD drive, Disk 2 is my external 2T drive containing partition E:. Disk 3 must be a second internal drive. I must have an E: drive to run an updated Access database that is hard wired to need E: (a known bug in Access) I don't want it to be on the external drive so I am wondering if it seems reasonable to rename the unformated E: to M: and then change Disk 3 partition 1 (G:) to E:?
Edit: Then I would delete M:
When available please update the progress with post #12.
What I would be wary of is that some applications can use unallocated, unformatted disk space to store settings, much like the Adobe authentication system and Intel's Optane caching through the RST + Optane drivers.
However those applications do not tend to give the storage space they use a drive letter.
Further more I find it highly unlikely that an external drive would be used for this purpose, is it possible the external drive has some form of hardware encryption built in that uses that partition? But again why the drive letter.
When did you acquire the external drive, did you format it?
The external drive, F:, is labelled "Backup", does it contain backup data? If so, how did you backup the data? Is the 1Mb partition something to do with your backup method?
I found that I had a Macrium Reflect 7 that had installed 3 years ago. I updated it and it contains much more information about E:
If I interpret this right, Disk 1 is my SSD drive, Disk 2 is my external 2T drive containing partition E:. Disk 3 must be a second internal drive. I must have an E: drive to run an updated Access database that is hard wired to need E: (a known bug in Access) I don't want it to be on the external drive so I am wondering if it seems reasonable to rename the unformated E: to M: and then change Disk 3 partition 1 (G:) to E:?
Edit: Then I would delete M:
I notice you have TWO optical drives. I would change their drive letters to P and Q, to get them out of the way. Then reboot the computer.
You could also download and install EaseUS Partition Master (free), and it will SHOW and tell us what the E: drive actually is.
Free partition manager software to resize partitions - EaseUS(R) Partition Master Free
\Another thing to do would be to open Macrium Reflect and click this...
Clicking that will "automatically" check mark w/e partitions are necessary to boot Windows.
Don't actually make a backup...just click the option shown in the RED box then post a screen shot of that.
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