I decided today to do some space reallocation & general tidying of my hard drives - merging partitions here, increasing partition sizes there, you know - the usual.

But take a look at this screenshot if you will:


<<<CLiCKiTY CLiCK!

Some thing is not quite right:

I have "K" listing as both N: and O: drives - their data a complete mirror - even when I add, edit or remove items in either of them. More oddly, this does not show in Acronis, which only lists "K: (O:)".

I also have "Local Disk (W:)" showing in My Computer, but not in Acronis.

Any ideas what I did wrong?

You have tried rebooting a couple of times, I trust?

If so, then my best guess is that your W: and O: drives are not real.

I'd guess that O: is either a subst or drive-map to N: , and that W is a software drive - perhaps a virtual DVD?

To check for Subst drives, type subst at the command prompt.

To check for drive mappings, in Explorer click "Tools" and "Disconnect Network Drive"

To check for virtual drives, look in device manager.

I had but yesterday it did nothing - I've just shut down my computer - did the washing up - turned it back on - and wallah! the mysterious extra letters have gone!

How very bizarre.

It was a secret message: Wash Oop!

You always need a reboot after messing with partitions, and it should prompt you to. I have no explanation why it didn't sort it out yesterday.