Phantom USB Drive

Both my Win 10 Pro (production system) and Win 10 Pro Preview versions*list a USB drive (each install is on a separate SSD). There is no USB drive connected and the status code, from what I find, says it is a*"NET" device. I don't have any network connected USB devices. If I uninstall it, in the Device Manger, it will come back either on a reboot or just scan for new hardware.

I posted this before, not on this forum, and never got anything resolved. I had this listed with an old motherboard. I recently upgraded my system to new hardware but the USB device is still listed.

Here are some screenshots from the Device Manger of the Preview system. *My production system shows the same thing.

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My thought would be it may not necessarily be an actual USB drive but maybe a card reader in the case as many computers are coming with now, particularly Notebooks. I think the PCI 'connections' on the motherboards are also involved with the USB ports.

There is no card reader. This is with two desktop systems (hardware). It happened with the old hardware - an ASRock Z77 motherboard with an i7 3770 CPU with a triple boot Win7/Win10/Win10 Preview. I now have an ASUS Maximus VIII motherboard with an i7 6700K CPU. The production system reused the same OS drive (no reinstall). The Insider Preview version was a new, clean, install. Both show the same thing.

fireberd said:

There is no card reader. This is with two desktop systems (hardware). It happened with the old hardware - an ASRock Z77 motherboard with an i7 3770 CPU with a triple boot Win7/Win10/Win10 Preview. I now have an ASUS Maximus VIII motherboard with an i7 6700K CPU. The production system reused the same OS drive (no reinstall). The Insider Preview version was a new, clean, install. Both show the same thing.

All I was pointing out is that the same problem on 2 different motherboards suggests there's an outside influence, hardware that existed in the case or something plugged in. But sometimes one has to install the drivers disc that usually comes with a new motherboard to get around problems that the OS creates or can't fix. I find in repairing that booting to a Linux LiveDVD can help pinpoint issues.

There is no card reader in my Wi-Fi connected printer and no card reader in my computer case. And, the case is a new case, different from the older system.

Look at the screen shots I posted. It says "On USB Mass Storage Device".

It also shows up in Disk Management.

Hardware ID's as requested. As I previously noted this has shown up on two different PC hardware.
I had thought at one time that maybe Macrium Reflect was installing something, but the Insider preview version, which was a complete clean install does not have Macrium Reflect installed, or the printer, etc. Just basic Windows install.

The parent device (USB Mass Storage) is a JMicron USB to SATA adapter.

Do you have an open SATA enclosure connected? Or wonder if one of the SATA ports on your computer is provided by this USB/SATA adapter. In either case, I believe it's the USB/SATA adapter that's generating the "phantom" device. It's an "unitialized" disk until you connect a SATA drive to the port

I don't have any "jMicron" USB to SATA adapters. I do have an external USB 3.0 Startech to SATA adapter that I can plug in SATA drives to. However, when I connect that, it shows up as a separate device on my Win 10 Production system, the Phantom USB device still shows up as the screen shots show. I don't think its that as the Insider Preview installation showed the Phantom drive and the Startech device has never been plugged into the Insider Preview installation.

It works the same way, either with the old complete system or the new complete system. If I uninstall it in the Device Manager then either reboot or scan for new hardware it will show up again.