RE: Naming Disk Drives in Sequence

Question

I read the above Thread on 'Naming Disk Drives in Sequence' and the reply from tphillips63. but.... I went into Disk Management and: When I followed these instructions I got: 'Warning Changing the drive letter of a volume might cause programs to no longer run. Are you sure you want to change this drive letter?' So I cancelled it and thought I better check first. History: Dell recently installed new mother board in my XPS 400. I had bought a new Hard drive from Dell and she installed WinXP Pro on the new hard drive so that I could retrieve data from my old hard drive at a later date (My old hard drive wasn't working properly at the time, but has since been fixed and formatted to use as a slave drive and it is Drive (C:) but has no Operating System on it, it's just formatted and blank after saving my files from it to the desktop on (I:) ) When Windows was installed on the new drive it came up as (I:) instead of (C:) I want to change (I:) to (C:). So I followed the instructions in the post and tried to rename Drive (C:) to (K:) (that's when I got the warning) Then I could change (I:) to (C:) and then rename other drives so I can get my DVD and DVDR back to Drives (D:) and (E:) When I installed the drivers from my resource disk, it wanted to install them to (C:) so I had to rename them to (I:) in order to install them. If I go ahead and change the drive letters despite the warning, is this going to cause any problems now? Thanks for any help Ron

gdwrnch3 · Answer

Windows will not allow you to change the drive letter of the boot drive. As far as changing the letter of your clean, formatted storage drive, go ahead and change it, it won't affect anything. You will either have to deal with I: being your boot drive, or do a reinstall of windows with your card reader and what ever else you have hooked in your system that took your drive letters.

Arpy81 · Answer

Thanks for the info gdwrnch3

Wow, what a bummer. I wonder why the drive was installed as (I:) in the first place. The other drive (the old drive) wasn't even hooked up yet when she installed windows.

You said: "do a reinstall of windows with your card reader and what ever else you have hooked in your system that took your drive letters."

I don't know what a "Card Reader" is. I haven't installed anything on the new drive yet except for the drivers from the resource CD. and the files from my old HD are pasted on the Desktop in a folder. Haven't even installed Antivirus or anything. Wanted to get this straightened out first.

Everything you install wants to install to (C:) drive. It's a real pain having your Primary drive as (I:).

Guess that's one I can thank the Dell Tech for.

Guess it's back to Dell Tech support to figure out how to correct this problem.

Thanks anyway

Ron

gdwrnch3 · Answer

Does your system have a media card reader installed, or any other add on's beside your cd or dvd rom? When the Dell tech installed your new hard drive and windows, was the new drive plugged into the same sata channel as your old drive was? I went through this on my own, although I caused the problem myself. One of the members here explained why it did it, and I reformatted and did the clean install because I didn't want to live with an I: boot disk. I unplugged my media card reader, and turned off all the other sata channels in the bios except for sata 0, then did my fresh install, after I had windows in, I turned on my DVD, DVD burner, and then my media card reader, and all is now as it should be. If a Dell tech did this, I would complain, and see if you can get them to redo it for you. Message Edited by gdwrnch3 on 01-08-200701:25 PM

tphillips63 · Answer

You must have a flash reader in the system or it would have been C: by default.
The only other thing that must have happened is you did not delete the partition that was I: because windows installer will reuse a drive letter if it had one.

You need to delete the i: partition and also during install it tells you what drive letter it is going to be, you do not have to get all they into windows.

After the i: is deleted you create a new drive and it will show you the letter and if it is not c: then you have a flash reader in the system. You need to disable it not leave it enabled, I suggested to unplug it. Windows install will only use a different letter from c: if there is already drive letters present then it will be the last avaiable drive letter.
A: and B: are reserved for floppies (still) and C: the boot drive, and D: the optical drive.
To get to I: you probably have two reader ports on the monitor and four in the computer, ABCDEFGH leaving I as the next letter and J as the optical.

Arpy81 · Answer

I have 4 readers for digital camera stuff I guess under the Floppy (Only ever used one of them once). What do you do just reach in there and unplug them?

Here's what Disk Management says:

1. Disk 0, Basic 74,50GB, Online, I: 74.50GB NTFS Healthy (System)

2. 47MB FAT Healthy (EISA Configuration), C: 70.73GB NTFS, 3.72GB FAT32 , Healthy Actvie, (Unknown Partition)

3. Disk 2-3-4-5 ( D:, E:, F:, J:,) repectively, Removeable Media, No Media.

G: is my DVD Drive, Used to be D:

H: is my DVDR Drive, Used to be E:

I'm thinking I'll burn my files I need to save to DVD and then unplug the new Hard Drive "E:". Put the old Hard Drive in the Primary Slot and install WinXP on that. Then Format the new Hard Drive and use it for the Slave Drive. Guess I should unplug the DVD Drives too Huh?

The only part that scares me is the first two words of the last paragraph "I'm Thinking". I get queezy in the stomach doing this stuff. I'm just a Computer Nerd Wannabe but a long ways from it. Getting too old and running out of time to learn.

Thanks for all the input

Ron

gdwrnch3 · Answer

Ok, Here is how you can do it, Power down, unplug your second hard drive, unplug your media card reader, small wire going into the back of it, boot up, into setup, turn off all your sata channels except for your sata 0 for your boot drive, and if you have sata DVD you'll need to leave that on. , save and exit. Put your XP install disk in, restart, , and select 'boot from CD rom' The machine will restart, load files, and show what drives are available to install windows on. You should see your I: partition, delete that, then follow the onscreen instructions to create a new partition, and so on. It will ask you if you want to format, I did a quick format with NTFS file system. it will ask you if this is where you want to install windows, check to be sure it assigned it C:, then go ahead and install windows. You can power down after the install, connect your extra hard drive, and other goodies, reboot, , turn on your sata channels and open control panel, disk management, and change your drive letters around to make your xtra hd D:, then your DVD's and card reader how ever you want, you just can't change your boot drive.  Mine is setup as raid 0 array, C: hd 2 D: hd 3 E: card reader F,G,H,I DVD J: DVD burner K: You can change any letter except your boot drive through Disk manager Hope this helps, jd Message Edited by gdwrnch3 on 01-08-200704:36 PM

Arpy81 · Answer

gdwrnch3   Well, the Dell Tech was actually real nice., but said She was only there to replace the mother board. Apparantely they only (pay her/alot her) so much time to replace the Motherboard.  She didn't stick around long enough to finish the Windows installation or install drivers or anything.  Just told me what to do. I didn't even realize that my boot drive was I: until I went to install the drivers.  They wanted to install in C: and I was proud of myself for just figuring out that I had to change it to I:. Like I said, I'm no computer whiz. Guess they expect you to get the rest of the information from Tech Support.   Thanks for the info, You've given me a lot to think about.   Ron

Arpy81 · Answer

gdwrnch3   Hey,  Sounds like a plan.   Don't know if I'll get to it tonight. Still Backing up data on DVD (7DVD's).   Then It'll take awhile to get up the courage to actually do it.  Then I'll check back and see if there's any additional info you added before I start.   I'll let you know how I make out. Glad I still have my old Dimension XPS B800r here to get on the net with. 7 Years and still running strong. What a machine.   I really appreciate the help   Ron

Arpy81 · Answer

Hi JD   Ok followed your instructions and got as far as where it shows what drives are available to install windows on.   It didn't come up showing I:  it came as follows   76294MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on iastor [MBR] C: Partition1 [NTFS] 76285MB (74383 free) Unpartitioned space  8MB   If I hit 'Enter' to allow it to install like this I get:   Caution Installing multiple operating systems on a single partition is not recommended. to learn more about installing multiple operating systems on a single computer see http//www.mcrosoft.com/windows/multiboot.asp   If I try to delete it it comes up with this:   The partition you tried to delete is a system partition.   System partitions may contain diagnostic or hardware configuration programs, programs to start operating systems (such as Windows XP), or other manufacturer supplied programs.   Delete a system partition only if you are sure that it contains no such programs or if you are willing to loose them.  Deleting a partition may prevent your computer from starting from the hard disk until you complete installation of Windows XP.   So I hit Esc and went back to the original window and that's where my computer is at the present time.   Should I delete it or what?   Thanks Ron

gdwrnch3 · Answer

Yes, delete the partition, then create a new partition, then format using the NTFS file system, a quick format will work, then go ahead and let windows install.

Arpy81 · Answer

You turned this Ole Fat Fella into one happy camper.    :-)   The System is up and runing, got the Old hard drive and the media card hooked back up and Drive C:   is  Drive  C:   Now I can start installing all my hardware and software and get on with my life.   Thankyou ... Thankyou  ....  Thankyou   Ron

gdwrnch3 · Answer

You are welcome Ron. Just be sure to install your intel chipset drivers first. have a good nite, jd

Arpy81 · Answer

jd   Yup, installed the drivers right after I got it up and running.   Thanks again for your help. It is greatly appreciated and thanks to the others who replied to this post.   Have a Great New Year   Ron

Storage, Drives & Media

RE: Naming Disk Drives in Sequence

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