Python / Windows: List only USB removable drives

Question

Is possible to get only the removable USB drives and (not so necessary) their tags on Windows using Python? On Linux (Ubuntu), you only need to list the /media folder.

Here's my current code (it lists all available drives letters including system drive, cd/dvd drives, etc):

import win32api

dv = win32api.GetLogicalDriveStrings()
dv = dv.split('\000')[:-1]
print dv

The result is something like this: ['C:\\', 'D:\\', 'E:\\']

I'd like only the USB mass storage drives... any help?

Regards...

`/media` can contain more than just USB devices. HDD can be there, too. — Lev Levitsky, Sep 04 '12 at 15:35
i know but that's just an example and it get the drives tags, also, it won't list the system drive :) — Hairo, Sep 04 '12 at 16:13
Does this answer your question? [How can I get a list of removable drives plugged in the computer?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41465580/how-can-i-get-a-list-of-removable-drives-plugged-in-the-computer) — CristiFati, Nov 03 '19 at 09:39

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 28 '13 at 17:10

1

import win32file

def rdrive(d):
    # returns boolean, true if drive d is removable
    return win32file.GetDriveType(d)==win32file.DRIVE_REMOVABLE

answered Jun 28 '13 at 17:10

user2532756

19
1

`No module named 'win32file'` – Pithikos Oct 31 '14 at 12:13
`pip install pywin32` – wallefan Jul 01 '20 at 21:13

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 31 '19 at 14:36

I just had a similar question myself. Using logic from @user2532756's answer, I knocked together this quick function for any new visitors to this question:

Very basically, just call the function and it will return a list of all removable drives to the caller.

import win32api
import win32con
import win32file

def get_removable_drives():
    drives = [i for i in win32api.GetLogicalDriveStrings().split('\x00') if i]
    rdrives = [d for d in drives if win32file.GetDriveType(d) == win32con.DRIVE_REMOVABLE]
    return rdrives

For example: A call to get_removable_drives() will output:

['E:\\']

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 19 '21 at 20:50

I was looking for this too, but then made it "from scratch" using the wmi module.

import wmi

LOCAL_MACHINE_CONNECTION = wmi.WMI()

# .Win32_LogicalDisk() returns a list of wmi_object objects. Each of them represents a storage device connected to the local machine (serial number, path, description, e.t.c)
drives_available = [wmi_object.deviceID for wmi_object in LOCAL_MACHINE_CONNECTION.Win32_LogicalDisk() if wmi_object.description == "Removable Disk"]

# .deviceID is the tag (or letter like F:, G:)

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 23 '19 at 09:25

You can also use the ctypes module to get the removable drives list.

from ctypes import windll    
def get_drives():
        drives = []
        bitmask = windll.kernel32.GetLogicalDrives()
        for letter in map(chr, range(65, 91)):
            if bitmask & 1:
                drives.append(letter)
            bitmask >>= 1
        return drives

You can take the same list and compare it with fresh list of drives to get removable drives added .

    drives_list=get_drives()
    drives_list1=[]
    while True:
      drives_list1=get_drives()
      if len(list(set(drives_list1) - set(drives_list))) > 0:
            print("Drives Added"+str(set(drives_list1) - set(drives_list)))

For more refer this repo drivemonitoring on github.

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 25 '21 at 20:02

The psutil library is much better than win32api. It provides lots of information about the drives and nicely formatted. https://github.com/giampaolo/psutil

import psutils as p
externals = [i.mountpoint for i in p.disk_partitions() if 'removable' in i.opts]

Python / Windows: List only USB removable drives

5 Answers5