Assigning Drive Letters

[Zilog Jones]

I just got a Fujitsu MPC3043AT (4.3GB) hard disk today, to add to my
rather lame PC (it currently has a 8.4GB Seagate Medalist). One of the IDE
pins was broken off the PCB, but after some bending it seemed to stay in
the right place - I probably should get it soldered back on properly, but
hey - I'm a student (read: I HAVE NO MONEY!). It seems to work OK, and
it's *very* quiet compared to my other drive. I just hope it's not one of
those bad models which will inevitably die (anyone know about this one?),
but I can't really complain - I did get it for free!

Anyway, back to the POINT: The only real problem I have with it is the
drive letter assignments. I previously just had the 8.4GB drive
partitioned into two (C: and D, but now the Fujitsu drive has gone on to
D:, with the second partion of the original drive moved to E: and the CD
burner to F:. I'm not bothered about where the CD drive is, but I had a
lot of shortcuts assigned to things on D: (now E and some programs are
installed on it too, which is an annoying problem.

Is it Windows (98SE) that assigned these drive letters, or the BIOS? I
can't see anything on the BIOS menu about it - it doesn't even say
anything about the partition at all. Anyway, can I change these letter
assignments? I really would like to swap E: with D: if possible. Is there
something in the registry that can change this? I've tried some 'tweaking'
programs like TweakUI and X-Setup, but the closest things they have is to
hide/show drives.

Would I need to re-format anything? I can format the new drive again (it
was already formatted in FAT32 when I got it, so I haven't done it myself
yet), but I wouldn't want to have to go through the hassle of formatting
the other drive.

I'd really appreciate any help!

Specs (in case you need them for some reason O.o):
Celeron 366MHz/66MHz FSB (socket 370)
Gigabyte GA-6VX7-4X m/b (AMI BIOS; latest update)
2 HDDs (mentioned above)
3 1/2" FDD
ASUS CRW-5224A CD-RW drive
Crappy "Real Power" 270W(?) PSU.
Lame ATI AGP graphics card

 

[Mike Walsh]

Reformat the 4.3 GB drive with an extended partition only; no primary partition.
The BIOS assigns hard drive letters, primary partitions first, then logical drives on extended partitions. Win9x can't change the letters, but WinNT based OSs (WinNT, Win2k, WinXP) can.

 

[Marc Reinig]

Windows looks for the first physical disk that has a primary partition and
assigns it a drive letter of C.

Then it looks for the next physical disk that has a primary partition and
assigns it a drive letter of D.

It continues this way until there are no more physical disks with primary
partitions.

Then it goes back to the first physical disk and sees if it has any logical
drives an the extended partion.

If it does it lables that the next letter

It proceeds through all the drives that way until all partitions are labled.

You started with a single physical drive with a primary partion and a single
extended partition.

Thus you have volumes C and D on that drive.

You added a new drive with a primary partion. So, it became D and the
extended partion on the original drive became E

Delete the primary partion on the new drive (fdisk from the cmd prompt, best
with a boot floppy).

Create an extended partion on the new drive with a single logical volume.

This will result in the drive ordering you want.

Marc Reinig
System Solutions

"Zilog Jones"

 

[Shep©]

On 22 Oct 2003 20:26:20 GMT, Knowing that it was a Hollywood invention
that lemmings jump off cliffs Zilog Jones

I just got a Fujitsu MPC3043AT (4.3GB) hard disk today, to add to my
rather lame PC (it currently has a 8.4GB Seagate Medalist). One of the IDE
pins was broken off the PCB, but after some bending it seemed to stay in
the right place - I probably should get it soldered back on properly, but
hey - I'm a student (read: I HAVE NO MONEY!). It seems to work OK, and
it's *very* quiet compared to my other drive. I just hope it's not one of
those bad models which will inevitably die (anyone know about this one?),
but I can't really complain - I did get it for free!

Anyway, back to the POINT: The only real problem I have with it is the
drive letter assignments. I previously just had the 8.4GB drive
partitioned into two (C: and D, but now the Fujitsu drive has gone on to
D:, with the second partion of the original drive moved to E: and the CD
burner to F:. I'm not bothered about where the CD drive is, but I had a
lot of shortcuts assigned to things on D: (now E and some programs are
installed on it too, which is an annoying problem.

Is it Windows (98SE) that assigned these drive letters, or the BIOS? I
can't see anything on the BIOS menu about it - it doesn't even say
anything about the partition at all. Anyway, can I change these letter
assignments? I really would like to swap E: with D: if possible. Is there
something in the registry that can change this? I've tried some 'tweaking'
programs like TweakUI and X-Setup, but the closest things they have is to
hide/show drives.

Would I need to re-format anything? I can format the new drive again (it
was already formatted in FAT32 when I got it, so I haven't done it myself
yet), but I wouldn't want to have to go through the hassle of formatting
the other drive.

I'd really appreciate any help!

Specs (in case you need them for some reason O.o):
Celeron 366MHz/66MHz FSB (socket 370)
Gigabyte GA-6VX7-4X m/b (AMI BIOS; latest update)
2 HDDs (mentioned above)
3 1/2" FDD
ASUS CRW-5224A CD-RW drive
Crappy "Real Power" 270W(?) PSU.
Lame ATI AGP graphics card

http://www.hildrum.com/harddriveadd.html
HTH



--
Free Windows/PC help,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/trouble.html
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http://www.soundclick.com/bands/8/nomessiahsmusic.htm

 

[Zilog Jones]

Reformat the 4.3 GB drive with an extended partition only; no primary
partition.
The BIOS assigns hard drive letters, primary partitions first, then
logical drives on extended partitions. Win9x can't change the letters,
but WinNT based OSs (WinNT, Win2k, WinXP) can.

Thanks for the help. I had a feeling it would involve re-formatting...

So, what exactly do I have to do in FDISK to get this? I've never used it
before so I haven't a clue. I know I should use it from a Win98 bootdisk,
but that's about all...

 

[Mike Walsh]

You need to boot to DOS to run Fdisk. Use either a floppy, or press F8 while booting from the hard drive and select command prompt.
Run Fdisk from the command prompt. There will be an item to select which drive to work with. Select the 4.3 GB drive, probably drive 2. Remove all partitions from the drive; there is probably only a primary partition. Create an extended partition using the entire drive. Create one or more logical drives on the extended partition. You will probably get a prompt about large hard drive support; answer yes to create a FAT32 drive. There will be numerous prompts to keep you from screwing this up. Make sure that you don't accidentally remove a partition from the wrong drive.
After you have created a logical drive it needs to be formatted. You can format from DOS, or if Format is not on the floppy you can format from windows.