Windows 10 Pro - MyBook Drives Show As Local Disk In File Explorer, But Are Working

[DefRef]

After about a week on my new build, I realized my two external WD MyBook drives weren't showing in Win10 File Explorer by their names. On closer inspection, I realized they'd changed their name to "Local Disk (J: )" and ""Local Disk (K: )" and their contents were fully accessible.

Googling around I can't find anything other than people whose drives need formatting or data recovery, but as you can see below the drives and their names appear fine in Disk Management, but don't carry through into Explorer.

Restarting the computer has no effect. I tried renaming the J: drive "MYBOOK 640" via Explorer and it didn't show there, but changed it in Disk Management. (It had previously been "My Book-640")

Any suggestions to get the names back. Again, the drives themselves are reading properly with all the data, just the labels have gone AWOL. Thanks in advance.

 

[DefRef]

Two days and no replies. Sigh...I always have the unanswerable questions.

New factors: When I plug a USB key drive in, it shows as "Removable Disk (E)" not the name I'd given it. However, when I go into Disk Management, it shows it named as "ADATA 32GB".

Where it gets weirder is that on my work PC running Window 7 Enterprise, the same situation occurs. It's as if my rig is masking the names of the drives to any PC after being plugged into it. Any ideas what could cause this? Bueller?

 

[Ketchup]

I have read in a couple places that an autorun file on the affected drive can cause this. Make sure you have the show hidden/system files options(s) selected. See here:

http://www.saypoint.net/2013/10/why-drive-name-not-showing.html

 

[DefRef]

Hmmm, I have show hidden files active and can see the autorun.inf file, but it won't let me delete it, saying I need Admin rights, even when I run Windows Explorer as Admin. I have all-access rights on my PC because of my job privileges. Getting weirder.

EDIT: Even in DOS cmd box I get this:

E:\>attrib +h
Access denied - E:\AUTORUN.INF

 

[Ketchup]

A couple suggestions:

http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/256661-cant-delete-autorun-inf.html

 

[DefRef]

Still no joy. If I go into the key drive's Properties, the name field is blank, but whatever I change there and apply is instantly reflected in Disk Management; it just refuses to reflect in Explorer and however that autorun.inf is involved, it's not moving out anytime soon.

FWIW, I scanned it with AV and came back clean.

 

[Ketchup]

Just right-click the drive and give it a name from the properties menu. After it applies, disconnect and reconnect. Did it keep the name?

 

[DefRef]

Doesn't change the name in Explorer whether I use Rename from the context menu or in the Properties>General tab and it doesn't change after eject/remount. I used to be able to simply right-click and change the name of drives. That this is carrying over to a Win7 box is troubling.

 

[Ketchup]

OK, in that case, see if it will let you rename the existing inf:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/66118-drive-rename.html
Using Option Two

 

[DefRef]

This is getting stupid:

* Try to delete the file = File Access Denied

* Try to rename the file = File Access Denied

* Try to open AUTORUN.INF = Notepad opens and "Access is denied" pops up.

* Try to save a new AUTORUN.INF from elevated instance of Notepad over the old ond = "Access is denied" pops up.

* Try to drag AUTORUN.INF into elevated instance of Notepad = "Access is denied" pops up.

 

[Ketchup]

Possibly try safe mode. That is odd though.

 

[DefRef]

Making some headway. Suspected Panda Antivirus's USB Vaccination "feature" could be involved and wouldn't you know, that appears to be the case: http://www.trishtech.com/2013/03/removing-panda-usb-vaccination-without-formatting-usb-disk/

Using the hex editor to make the effing AUTORUN.INF block writable - I had to search for just "autorun" rather than "autorun.inf" because the latter wouldn't find it - allowed me to open the damn thing and see it had a string "caacaacaacaacaa " and rename and delete the file.

Going into Properties shows the name again, BUT Explorer still insists on seeing it as a Removable Disk no matter if you eject/reinsert it or not, leaving this mess:

AFAICT you can't unvaccinate your USB drives via Panda, so I guess I'll be hacking a few more to undo that damage without resolving the overall problem.

 

[Ketchup]

I hate it when AV does stuff like this. FWIW, never have these types of issues with MSE.

 

[DefRef]

FWIW, the ADATA drive is now showing as ADATA in Explorer on my Windows 7 work machine. Still goofed at home.