Cannot see Drive D in Winows Explorer

[ErnestTwo]

I have two hard drives on which I have installed Windows XP I boot up in Drive C and use it for all my work. I have drive D in the event C craches. I can then boot into D by changing it in the BIOS. Here is the problem, In Drive C enviroment I can see both drives C & D in windows explorer. When I change the bios to boot from second Drive "D" which has now become "C". I cannot see my second drive now "D" which was "C" in original boot mode . If I go to My Computer and open drive C or E and check the Tools tab it is listed. If I go to System devices it is there the only place it is not visable is in Windws Explorer. I hope I haven't made this to complicated sounding.
Ernest

 

[floppybootstomp]

Please don't post duplicate threads in different Forum sections, it can confuse the issue having replies spread acorss two threads. One is enough, I have deleted the other one.

Welcome to the Forum, by the way

I'm sure somebody will be along with a suggestion soon.

 

[muckshifter]

You are over-complicating things.

You cannot "dual-boot" that way ... just us the D drive as a back-up by either using a good back-up program or simply copy your data to D


What are you going to do when both drives fail ...

 

[ErnestTwo]

I do not want to Dual boot, I only want to boot to D when C fails. What are the odds that both drives will fail concurrently. If the C Fails I have D drive as a complete backed up and opearting system. I will replace C Drive copy D to C and keep on trucking! I was curious why D drive was seen in explorer when booting from C but not seen when D became the the C boot drive.

 

[AbsoluteKevster]

Experiment with your Drive Letters.
You cannot have 2 the same.
For example - I have a similar scenario as you... Where Boot Partitions are available on different Interface types.
One on an IDE Device and One on a SATA Device.
If I switch the Boot Interface in the BIOS, either boots happily, with the other available as another drive letter.
If you have one of your drives set to C: then it won't like it when the other C: comes into play at Boot time!

Have one set as D: and one set as M:, for example. You can sort the letters/shortcuts etc when you've cracked what's happening..

Just out of interest - are you specifying these drive letters using Windows Disk Management (DiskMgmt.msc) - or a 3rd Party Application? Stick with Windows, and see how you get on...

Cheers
Kev

 

[ErnestTwo]

I change my boot drive in the BIOS from the Maxtor normally my C:drive to the Western Digital usually my D: Then the WD boots into Windows XP and I assume that is what assigns the Drive letters. When booting normally from my Maxtor both drives are visiable in Explorer. However when I assign the WD as the boot drive Windows shows the WD as the C drive which is correct but no D:drive is visible in Explorer. The CD Rom is shown as E: I was curious why both drives are visible in my normal boot from the Maxtor but D is not visible when I change the boot to the WD which was the fomer D drive (Now become C) then the Maxtor or former C drive should be picked up as the D.

 

[AbsoluteKevster]

Hi
Change the drive letter assignments as per above, even if just a test mechanism.

Use from J,K,L,M,N, (presuming you have no present drive mapping with those letters?) - Change your volume labels too - this will be clear which drive is which.... But don't worry - you can change them back with no hassle.

Please also provide information based on the physical interface layout.
Are you using a mixture of IDE and SATA?
If IDE, Are these on Separate channels - ie on one Primary IDE and other on Seconday IDE.
Or are they on the same IDE channel?
Please also state whether the devices are configured as Master/Slave or Cable Select?
(You will see this defined by an image on the drive (top or bottom) which corresponds to the Drive Selector Jumper Switches).
Finally - Do you have RAID enabled in your BIOS?

Many Thanks
Kev

 

[system32_freak]

Use a drive image program such as Norton Ghost to take an image of your c drive and copy it onto your d drive and that way you can load the image onto the c drive if something goes wrong without complicating yourself with booting.

 

[ErnestTwo]

Hi AbsoluteKevster, I am sorry I have not replied to your post my work had piled up! I have a quick question, if I cange my physical drive letters from C to H or whatever in Windows XP using (DiskMgmt.msc) will my programs work that are looking to access C: Drive when I boot into that drive from my BIOS setting under a different letter??

 

[AbsoluteKevster]

I think so, yes.
I used to switch between booting to C: or O: and had no issues.

It depends exactly how you have things set up.

 

[ErnestTwo]

Hi AbsoluteKevster, Thank you for all your help on this. I have resolved the problem. I am going to refer to my drives as "Main Drive" which is C and "Second Drive" D in my normal computing environment. I have a full disk copy of C on my D drive. When I change my BIOS and reverse these drives "Second drive" becomes C and works fine "no problem" but I could not see "main drive" at all and no letter designation in Windows Explorer. So I went into Control panel, Asmin Tools, Computr Mang, Disk mang. and assigned "Main Drive" with D and as they say, "The universe is unfolding as it should"! No doubt somewhere in these emails you probably suggested exactly that but I have not done a lot of experimenting with the drives in Windows XP, "if it ain't broke don't fix it!! Once again thank you for your kindness and patience.

 

[ErnestTwo]

TO: muckshifter who said
"you are over-complicating things.
You cannot "dual-boot" that way ... just us the D drive as a back-up by either using a good back-up program or simply copy your data to D"
Read my above post, I guess you can dual boot that way if I want to!!

 

[AbsoluteKevster]

TO> muckshifter who said
"you are over-complicating things.
You cannot "dual-boot" that way ... just us the D drive as a back-up by either using a good back-up program or simply copy your data to D"
Read my above post, I guess you can dual boot that way if I want to!!

Ernest, you are welcome for the assistance mate.

You might find a little clarification about 'dual-booting' here..
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa460112.aspx

This is what Muckshifter was referring to.

What you have now managed to achieve would not be defined as 'dual-boot', more like 'disk-swapping'.