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chrissongs

16 Posts

9448

December 6th, 2005 01:00

Drive letter fun!

Hi, everyone!
 
I recently had to reinstall Windows XP. Upon booting, I received an error message and had to boot to the Recovery Console to fix it. (That's not my problem, but it's relevant.) In the Recovery Console, my Windows installation is listed as C:\WINDOWS. However, when I boot XP, my hard drive shows up as drive D:. Weird. I ran regedt32 and looked in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices. Both drives C: and D: are listed,with different binary data. (My DVD-ROM and DVD-RW are also listed differently: as E and F in XP, as D and E in Recovery Console.) What gives? If I change drive D: to drive C: by modifying the registry, will that cause problems getting into Recovery Console? (Can't afford that - I've had to use it much more than one poor girl should. ^_^) And if I do change D: to C:, what should I do with whatever's currently listed as C:?

tgsmith

2.9K Posts

December 6th, 2005 03:00

Chrissongs,

If it's working, don't change anything.  Doing so will put you in outer Mongolia. Drive letter assignment's are relative.  Would be interested in what your boot.ini file shows. Whatever you do, don't mess with any entries in the boot.ini file or any registry entries regarding boot drive assignment.. Doing so can kill your system's ability to boot up.

Tony

Message Edited by tgsmith on 12-06-2005 12:11 AM

Message Edited by tgsmith on 12-06-2005 12:53 AM

shesagordie

10 Elder

 • 

46K Posts

December 6th, 2005 03:00

Chrissongs
 
The only way to change the boot hard drive's assigned letter, is to reinstall windows.
 
 
Bev.

tgsmith

2.9K Posts

December 6th, 2005 03:00

Thanks Bev,
I should have emphasized that my comments were directed to BOOT drive letter assignment.  Routinely change CD, ZIP, and USB drives to whatever suits the situation without conflict with existing physical or mapped drives. And of course this is done BEFORE software loads that needs to reference those drives for data retrieval, storage, or whatever reason.
Tony

Message Edited by tgsmith on 12-06-2005 12:50 AM

Message Edited by tgsmith on 12-06-2005 12:56 AM

Message Edited by tgsmith on 12-06-2005 12:57 AM

chrissongs

16 Posts

December 6th, 2005 13:00

Oh, I already had to create a new boot.ini file. Apparently when I reinstalled XP, it didn't do that for me. Lovely, right? The thing I don't understand is why the Recovery Console recognizes the installation under the correct drive letter, and XP is messed up. Any ideas?

(As a side note, I can't run chkdsk on the volume, probably because of the drive letter mixup. I've got to do something about it... even if it means a complete reinstall, though I had hoped not.)

Message Edited by chrissongs on 12-06-2005 09:04 AM

tgsmith

2.9K Posts

December 6th, 2005 15:00

Chrissongs,
This is how your problem COULD have occurred.
 
 
This is why Microsoft  recommends disconnecting everything except keyboard, mouse, and monitor before reinstalling Windows XP (Home or Pro).  Does this apply to your case? I suspect it could also happen if you have any USB storage media device attached at time of reinstall. This could also explain why the Recovery Console sees your drive correctly. All it's looking for is a Windows installation or installations on attached drives.
 
Your options are:
 
1. Follow Shesagordie's recommendation.
2. See option 1.
 
You mentionned you had to create a boot.ini file.  If you are running Windows XP Pro, you may have two partitions ( a boot partition and a system partition).  In this case, the system partition simply tells Windows on which boot partition the actual operating system is located. If, and we hope not, the drive was converted from a basic drive to a dynamic drive, your only option is to do a clean install (not reinstall) of Windows XP.
 
Tony
 

Message Edited by tgsmith on 12-06-2005 01:57 PM

chrissongs

16 Posts

December 6th, 2005 19:00

Nope... I did everything as recommended. (I only know a moderate amount about computers, but I'm very good at following directions.) But you're right: I'll have to reinstall XP. Luckily, my friend still has my data on her computer from the first time I reinstalled, so it shouldn't be a huge deal. ^_^ Thanks!

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