Although they all look pretty much alike, there are several different "flavors" of flash drives.

SanDisk seems to be among the "more reputable" makers, and some of them may come preloaded with a couple of kinds of programs, since SanDisk is more likely than some others to offer "advanced features."

One common type of content is a "synch program" that purports to resolve differences between files on the flash drive and those on a hard drive from which the files were originally copied. This is to handle the case where you use the flash drive to load the files on another computer, edit them, and then bring the flash drive back home.

I've avoided using synch programs pending finding someone to tell me how discrepancies are resolved. Sometimes I don't want the most recent file to overwrite an older one, especially if both versions have been edited while the file was "off wandering." Thus far I've waited about 12 years without finding a coherent explanation, so I'm still avoiding "automatic synch."

Some kinds of flash drives also can be used as "supplemental System Memory" on some WinXP or Vista computers, and usually these kinds will come preloaded with the appropriate "hooks" for this kind of usage.

Either of these kinds of programs can be set up to "autoload" the first time you insert the drive, and in both cases, to facilitate the specific usages, the computer may be "told to remember" the drive letter first assigned to the flash drive. If the autorun is allowed to run multiple times, you could end up with a flash drive with multiple personalities, perhaps as seems to have happened here.

Some of us consider anything that "automatically" puts stuff on your computer a bit on the impolite side, unless it's a CD/DVD specifically intended for program installation. The sellers of some of this kind of stuff, however, firmly believe that everybody wants exactly what they have to sell, so often even the bit of unintelligible "quick start" instructions found in odd mixtures of Englanese, Japanglish, or Urdulish don't say a word about what you can expect to happen when you plug in - - it just happens and they know it will make you happy.

IF THIS MIGHT BE WHAT'S HAPPENED, any synch programs or memory augment programs should appear in Control Panel Add/Remove programs, where you can remove them and start over. Recognizing the right programs there, even if they do appear, may require some "linguistic juggling."

If the programs can be removed, rebooting with the flash drive NOT PLUGGED IN in theory should clear the drive letter assignments.

If nothing appears in Control Panel, a search of your system hard drive for any program name(s) found on the flash drive - that you didn't put there - may find a folder where the "accessories" were installed. The folder may contain an "uninstall" - sometimes with a bizarre name like "Unwise.exe" or other such nonsense.

If no program is in Control Panel, but a folder is found, and the folder doesn't contain an uninstall script/exe, usually deleting the folder should remove the program.

If all of the above fail to produce a logical path for cleaning things up, you can consider the last-resort method, which consists of using Device Manager to delete (all of) the USB controllers and then letting PnP reinstall them when you reboot and and then reconnect USB devices. I haven't found another simpler way of getting rid of a true "persistent phantom" USB device. If anyone has a better (less drastic) fix, please call home ASAP.

John