Users on Windows 11/10 may notice that the same Drive letter may get listed twice while opening the File Explorer – Once under This PC and again separately as a Removable Drive. At times, even the Hard Drives appear twice. If you’re seeing duplicate drives in File Explorer, you can stop Windows 11/10 from showing the USB drive twice, by following this tutorial.
Remove duplicate Drive Letter entry from Explorer
If your Drives appear twice in the Navigation Pane of Windows 11/10 Explorer you may try these suggestions. Please note that the method involves introducing changes in the registry editor. Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using it. So create a system restore point before proceeding further.
In the search box of the Windows taskbar type regedit, and then press Enter key to bring up the Registry Editor. Alternatively, press Win+R to bring up the Run dialog box, type ‘regedit’ and hit Enter key.
In the Registry Editor, navigate to the following Path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\DelegateFolders
Under DelegateFolder key you should find the following key –
{F5FB2C77-0E2F-4A16-A381-3E560C68BC83}
Right-click on the above-mentioned key and then click the Delete button to delete the key. When prompted with a confirmation dialog, click Yes button to delete the key.
Deleting the key should remove extra USB drive entry from File Explorer in Windows 10.
If you are running Windows 11/10 64-bit, do the same thing here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\DelegateFolders
However, if you still notice the drive entry appearing twice, simply sign out from your account and sign in, or restart Windows Explorer once again. To do so, open Task Manager, click More details, find the General tab, under it locate Windows Explorer entry, right-click on the entry and then click Restart.
Let us know if the method worked for you by writing in the comments section below.
