XP Drive letter change

[Steve R Jones]

Please note that this thread is 18 Months old

[G]

It does sound as if the 26 drive letter allocation has been used up.

The only way to get this sorted is to delete them using the method mentioned in the link Bill gave you but you also said that this was a Windows reinstall.

Was this a clean setup, if so the drive letter allocation should be fine?

It may need partition software to view and see what is wrong with the volumes that are shown as unformatted in DM.

Let me know.

[europanorama]

i also have troubles sometimes to see all three partitions of an usb-drive.
i have much complicated setups. multiple systems: winme, win2k both normal, win2k ide-raid with swapdrive and temporary backupdrive.
first i will have to get a usb-hub to add also two usb-sticks.
my 40, 120 and 160 drives have different amounts of partitions.
now i am trying to find a way out of the letter-chaos. e.g.
optical drives. w2k names them both cd. i couldnt separate them. i couldnt find a location telling me which letter is assigned to dvd-burner and dvd-rom. i had to use a disk to check.
at winxp i will only leave main drive and optical drives, right? adding the remaining items later.

[BipolarBill]

You can tell which drive is a DVD in Disk Management. It's in Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management.

[europanorama]

i have different behaviors depending which drive i am using.
aim is adjusting the wanted drive letter to external usb-drive of 3 partitions.
first i assigned dvd-drives to letter x, y on system 1608O.
added external drive with 3 partitions. it showed up only one partition, z.
then a reassigned dvds to v and w, 3-partition-drive still showing up only one prtition Z.
on second w2k1602 all partitions can be seen.
i tried everything, nothing helped. no other usb-items are connected.

both systems(3 in total) are ide-raid. with systemdrive and swapdrive(both partitioned. will now test the last one plus a normal 120gb.(2 copies) and 40gb all win2k.
would be nice to find a solution, since i cannot synchro them or any other more work. must install wxp on a 320 wd. it will be ide-raid but without swapdrive. i have more slots free.

[BipolarBill]

You have gone drive-crazy.

Windows is limited to 24 drive letters and all your messing around with drives has resulted in no more letters left.

Windows remembers drive letters. They may be reserved or conflicting.

I have been trying to get you to listen to me for years now. You are stubborn. You must simplify your storage! Run ONE operating system. Use TWO hard drive volumes for Windows and programs. Use ONE hard drive for backup. Use no more than TWO CD/DVD drives. Use no more than ONE USB hard drive and maybe two USB flash drives.

Get rid of the ridiculous swap drive.

Here is how to clean up:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/1...-drive-letter/

Be careful!

[BipolarBill]

By the way, no matter how fast your "swap drive" is, the system is going to have to wait while the data is swapped. There is really only one controller and it can only process one source at a time, so this really does not speed up your PC.

[europanorama]

i have found the solution.
1. reassigned usb-hdd-partitions-letters(backup-drive). no 1=x(was z),no 2(was not detected/no letters automaticall assigned)=y and 3(same as 2)=z
windows 2k did not remember.
when changing letters i forgot the "read into"
cardreader(4 letters) and usb-flashdrives(2) windows could remember.
btw: how can i use the raid-slots(ide3 and ide4 if my system is running on ide 1 and optical drives on ide2(always there)? only by using ide-raid like i did.
switching to wxp:
if i want to leave swapdrive-option open i must install wxp as ide-raid. can leave swapfile on main drive. i can change later. impossible to do this -on a seperate slot-with ide1-strategy.
we will see if this strategy is working as soon as i will begin stitching at least at this slow system. ga- 7n400 pro 2 rev2. amd 1800+/2gb.
have a nice weekend. and thank you very much.