What is this Ghost Drive?

A recent client has a mystery drive? (or folder)? Labeled : Ginger andDon (\\TOSHIBALAPTOP) (Z:)

This is their system: (version 2004, build 19041.867)





The Z: drive doesn’t show up in Drive Manager


Nor does it show up as a folder in Folder Size.



Note that C: and Z: are identical in size, so I expected to see a folder of at least ½of 53 Gb. Don’t see that though.
Speccy lables Z: as a virtual drive using 6.34 GB, but I don’t see anything like Vboxor Hyper-V.



Files on Z: function correctly even with internet not available.


Is some app loading the User folder into ram at startup? I don’t see anything instartup that would do that.


Anybody know what Z: is, and where it’s hiding?

It's a mapped network drive.

pillboxhunter said:

It's a mapped network drive.

??? The "Z" drive is an exact copy of of the owners User folder, which doesn't make much sense. The files on the Z drive were accessible even with no internet or network available. I'm not disagreeing with you, just scratching my head as to how this can be.

Bree said:

Easy, you share your own user folder, then map a drive letter to the shared folder. It's accessible without the internet because the share is on the same PC - no network required. The Z: drive isn't a copy of the user's folder - it's the exact same folder, just being accessed a different way. Just right-click on it and select Disconnect to get rid of it.

Thanks Bree & Pillboxhunter- I didn't realize that you could map a local folder as well as a network folder. I tried to map a local folder earlier today, but couldn't. The command seems to have moved from where I seem to have remembered it being, but I finally found it. For me, I think I would prefer to pin the folder to quick access.

[Edit] ps; Bree - I tried to "Thank you" officially, but system wouldn't let me. Anyway, thank you unofficially.

The main reason I am exploring this issue is the severely restricted memory. It appears, according to Speccy, about half of the memory is reserved for a "Virtual" drive. If that's really true, it's a major concern. The machine is too old and slow to be restricted to half it's memory.

A screenshot of what you are seeing in Speccy might help to pinpoint the true culprit.

See my first post, 5'th screen shot down, or here.

If you have the This PC icon on your desktop you can Right-Click on it and select Map network drive...

Bree said:

Note that the total physical RAM is always slightly less than the installed RAM. This difference is shown in Task Manager as 'Hardware reserved' and represents a part of the address space that's used to map to RAM in other devices, such as the video RAM. On an x64 Windows this should be quite small, but on a 32-bit Windows about 1GB may be reserved for addressing the video RAM.

A large hardware reserved figure on an x64 machine usually indicates some of the installed RAM has been detected as unusable. It may be faulty, or it may just need reseating.

It is a little more complicated than that. Even on a x64 bit system you might have a large amount of reserved RAM. This will happen if you have an APU where the integrated GPU has some of the system RAM reserved for it. For example for my laptop:

CPU: Ryzen 7 2700U
RAM: 8GB
GPU1: Radeon RX Vega 10 (1GB shared RAM)
GPU2: Radeon RX 540 (2GB dedicated RAM)

GPU1 will have 1GB of the system RAM reserved for it.
However, GPU2 has its own 2GB of dedicated RAM
Also, there is an additional 0.1GB of RAM reserved for the system.
That means of the 8GB of Installed RAM only 6.9GB is indicated for Total Physical RAM.
Note the RAM for GPU2 does not show up in the numbers for the system RAM because it is separate and not part of it.

Bree:

Also, I would expect Speccy to show you more details about the RAM, the type, the number of slots used, and so on. How old is your version? Mine is version 1.32.774.

Mine is now the latest portable version - 1.72.740 (64-bit).
@Bree and @Mr. Ed - Your info on the memory usage has clarified my understanding of to Speccy Info. Since both of my concerns have been addressed, I'm marking this thread soved. Thanks again to all.