Missing hard drive yet drive letters are correct maybe?

V

Videot

Correct me if I'm wrong but I was under the impression that hard drive
letters were assigned each time the machine booted up & only c & d were
reserved for the operating system & CD/DVD drive & if the number of drives
altered from one boot up to the next these letters could change. The reason
that I ask is that I changed an internal drive which had several partitions
on it only to find that this drive isn't recognized, but even though it
isn't recognized by My Computer or disk management the other partition are
labeled as if this were listed.

I now don't have a an 'e' & 'g' drive listed. But I do have a 'J' & 'k'
listed. Where is my other drive 'e' & 'g' & how do I get to use the data on
them.

I have tried changing BIOS auto detect on & off to no avail. BIOS doesn't
list this drive either. Help?
 
P

Paul Vasquez

That is somewhat accurate.

Drive letters are assigned automagically by PnP upon boot. C is reserved but
D is not.

When the system boots up, it looks at the drives and letters in the
registry. If there is a drive and it had a drive letter assigned at last
shutdown, this drive *should* get the same letter. If there is a new drive,
it will you use the next available drive letter.

Did you swap the drive or add the drive? Sounds like you added it and expect
to see all of the partitions?

Paul
 
A

Al Romanosky

As you may be aware - one HD may have primary partitions (Four permitted) -
but "logical" partitions on the same drive overcome that limitation and are
also assigned drive letters.
 
V

Videot

I took out an old drive that had partitions on it & inserted a new drive
that also had partitions on it. The jumper settings were the same on both.
I still have no idea why 'my computer' displays drive letters with missing
alphabet letters missing or why all drives aren't displayed. How do I fix
the problem?


Paul Vasquez said:
That is somewhat accurate.

Drive letters are assigned automagically by PnP upon boot. C is reserved
but D is not.

When the system boots up, it looks at the drives and letters in the
registry. If there is a drive and it had a drive letter assigned at last
shutdown, this drive *should* get the same letter. If there is a new
drive, it will you use the next available drive letter.

Did you swap the drive or add the drive? Sounds like you added it and
expect to see all of the partitions?

Paul
 
J

John

Videot said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but I was under the impression that hard drive
letters were assigned each time the machine booted up & only c & d were
reserved for the operating system & CD/DVD drive & if the number of drives
altered from one boot up to the next these letters could change. The reason
that I ask is that I changed an internal drive which had several partitions
on it only to find that this drive isn't recognized, but even though it
isn't recognized by My Computer or disk management the other partition are
labeled as if this were listed.

I now don't have a an 'e' & 'g' drive listed. But I do have a 'J' & 'k'
listed. Where is my other drive 'e' & 'g' & how do I get to use the data on
them.

I have tried changing BIOS auto detect on & off to no avail. BIOS doesn't
list this drive either. Help?

Its not an error. Its a different hard drive with different signature
regardless if the partition setup is the same as the old. Use
DiskManagement to set things up the way you want them. Unlike the 9X
line XP remembers previous internal hard drive partition assignments. On
the next reboot your changes will stick.

John
 
J

John

John said:
Its not an error. Its a different hard drive with different
signature regardless if the partition setup is the same as the old. Use
DiskManagement to set things up the way you want them. Unlike the 9X
line XP remembers previous internal hard drive partition assignments. On
the next reboot your changes will stick.

John

Sorry, got caught up in the first part of your post and didn't see the
BIOS thing. The drive may be toast. If BIOS doesn't see it *no* OS will
either.

JOhn
 

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