Disk Confusion

[Bob]

I have two removable drive bays which I have connected to the primary
IDE channel. This allows me to switch disks around at will, which is
necessary for cloning backups, using archive disks, etc.

There is a problem, however, because Windows gets confused. Usually I
can clean things up by removing a disk, removing the associated driver
(Add/Remove Hardware) and let Windows re-discover the disk.

This time that did not work. Somehow Windows has become really
confused. I have a 30GB drive in the second bay (slave) that is my
archive disk. The problem is that Windows mounts it as both D: and F:
(my DVD drive is E. Removing the driver associated with that disk
does not fix the problem - Windows reconfigures the disk with two
drive letter designations.

Any idea how fix this?

 

[Ian East]

I have two removable drive bays which I have connected to the primary
IDE channel. This allows me to switch disks around at will, which is
necessary for cloning backups, using archive disks, etc.

There is a problem, however, because Windows gets confused. Usually I
can clean things up by removing a disk, removing the associated driver
(Add/Remove Hardware) and let Windows re-discover the disk.

This time that did not work. Somehow Windows has become really
confused. I have a 30GB drive in the second bay (slave) that is my
archive disk. The problem is that Windows mounts it as both D: and F:
(my DVD drive is E. Removing the driver associated with that disk
does not fix the problem - Windows reconfigures the disk with two
drive letter designations.

Any idea how fix this?

Why Microsoft still uses C:, D:, E:, etc... drive names and not volume
names is beyond me. I guess they're having trouble completely letting
go of DOS. Knowing which version of Windows you're using would help.
If it's NT4ish you can manually assign drive letters with the disk
management utility. (In Administrative tools for NT4, or right click
My Computer and select Manage for W2K+). I don't know why it's
mounting it as two drives at once. The only thing I can think of is
that this disk has been drive D: and drive F: in the past. Writing a
new signature to the disk might fix the problem. (You can do this
with MBRWizard)

 

[Bob]

Knowing which version of Windows you're using would help.

I should have said Win2K.

If it's NT4ish you can manually assign drive letters with the disk
management utility. (In Administrative tools for NT4, or right click
My Computer and select Manage for W2K+).

I have one drive with two letters. Disk Manager only acknowledges one
of them (F. But I can't change F: to D: because D: is not in the
list.

I don't know why it's
mounting it as two drives at once. The only thing I can think of is
that this disk has been drive D: and drive F: in the past.

That has been the case.

Writing a
new signature to the disk might fix the problem. (You can do this
with MBRWizard)

I use Win98. I will try that.

I thought that by deleting the driver Windows would be forced to come
up with a new one. But somehow the old one or remnants of it are
hanging around.

Hey, I bet I know what's going on. The Registry maintains a list of
old designations. I need to empty that list.

I'll do that and report back if it worked.

 

[Bob]

If it's NT4ish you can manually assign drive letters with the disk
management utility. (In Administrative tools for NT4, or right click
My Computer and select Manage for W2K+). I don't know why it's
mounting it as two drives at once. The only thing I can think of is
that this disk has been drive D: and drive F: in the past. Writing a
new signature to the disk might fix the problem. (You can do this
with MBRWizard)

Ok, here's what I had to do. I tried each of these alone and none of
them worked. Then I tried all of them at once and I got Windows to
designate D: and no other.

1) Disconnected the extra disk.

2) Removed the extra disk driver.

3) Removed all the hard disk Registry entries at:

HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

4) Reconnected the disk and used Win98 Fdisk /MBR to put 4 zeros in
the signature of the disk.

[That particular version of Fdisk has a bug which works out great for
clearing enough of the signature to force Windows to reassign a new
one.]

That fixed it. Maybe I only needed to do only two of the three above,
but I don't care.

 

[kony]

Why Microsoft still uses C:, D:, E:, etc... drive names and not volume
names is beyond me.

Sure, I"d just LOVE to have to go to a Run prompt and type
"M80F32_EXT2:\Windows" instead of C:\windows. Not.

If something works, don't break it.

 

[Ian East]

Sure, I"d just LOVE to have to go to a Run prompt and type
"M80F32_EXT2:\Windows" instead of C:\windows. Not.

If something works, don't break it.

Why would you type "M80F32_EXT2:\Windows" unless you're trying to
access a volume on another machine across the network? It would just
be "\Windows" if its the local machine. Every other Non-MS OS on the
planet seems to be working just fine with volume names.

Drive letters are obsolete in a networked world and have been for a
long time. Windows doesn't even use them any more internally, it's
just nostalgic. While they're at it, they should get rid of that
retarded '\' (backslash) directory separation character and use a
forward slash like the rest of the world.

 

[kony]

Why would you type "M80F32_EXT2:\Windows" unless you're trying to
access a volume on another machine across the network?

That's just it, I wouldn't type all that, wouldn't want to
ever have to type a descriptive volume name instead of a
simple volume letter.

It would just
be "\Windows" if its the local machine. Every other Non-MS OS on the
planet seems to be working just fine with volume names.

In this one isolated scenario, yes you're right.
It was an unusual one though, so I"ll give you another.
W160NTFPRI1:\folder_4

Is that easier to remember or type than this?
E:\folder_4

I agree that if enough people really want to use the volume
name instead, it would be nice to have MS add that ability,
but not use it instead of volume letters. Why wouldn't MS
stick with conventions that work in DOS anyway?

Drive letters are obsolete in a networked world and have been for a
long time.

You're being arbitrary.
There is no reason they can't be used and no reason why they
would be obsolete.

Windows doesn't even use them any more internally, it's
just nostalgic.

Well if you want to nitpick, windows doesn't use the volume
name either beyond an association to the drive, which is
essentially what the letter is, too.

While they're at it, they should get rid of that
retarded '\' (backslash) directory separation character and use a
forward slash like the rest of the world.

I can see that you must have a hard time using windows.
Good luck getting the entire world to change but of all the
thing wrong with windows, (IMO), these are so far down the
list that I really hope MS isn't spending their time on
them.

 

[~misfit~]

Drive letters are obsolete in a networked world and have been for a
long time. Windows doesn't even use them any more internally, it's
just nostalgic. While they're at it, they should get rid of that
retarded '\' (backslash) directory separation character and use a
forward slash like the rest of the world.

Damn *nix trolls are getting into the hardware groups too now I see. A sad
day.

 

[Bob]

Sure, I"d just LOVE to have to go to a Run prompt and type
"M80F32_EXT2:\Windows" instead of C:\windows. Not.

You can alias it if you want.

If something works, don't break it.

If Microsoft adopted that attitude, it would be out of business.

 

[Bob]

Windows doesn't even use them any more internally

While they're at it, they should get rid of that
retarded '\' (backslash) directory separation character and use a
forward slash like the rest of the world.

Then there would be a patent fight.

When MS was developing DOS 2, they hired programmers who knew lots of
UNIX, which is why DOS 2 looks a lot like UNIX (redirection, filename
expansion, even pseudo-pipes). But they had to be careful of adopting
the look and feel of UNIX so they used the backslash instead of the
forward slash, just to look different.

 

[Bob]

Damn *nix trolls are getting into the hardware groups too now I see. A sad
day.

Bring them on. UNIX is the greatest OS ever invented. How we got stuck
with this pathetic POS Windows is something else.

 

[Nik Simms (Web Developer)]

On 7/10/05 12:38 pm, in article

Then there would be a patent fight.

When MS was developing DOS 2, they hired programmers who knew lots of
UNIX, which is why DOS 2 looks a lot like UNIX (redirection, filename
expansion, even pseudo-pipes). But they had to be careful of adopting
the look and feel of UNIX so they used the backslash instead of the
forward slash, just to look different.

Dirty operating system
They should redevelop it to be different and better.

 

[Ian East]

That's just it, I wouldn't type all that, wouldn't want to
ever have to type a descriptive volume name instead of a
simple volume letter.

Wouldn't it be easier to have just one /Program_Files rather than have
to figure out whether a program got installed on drive C, D, or E or
have to worry about files spread across different root volumes?

In this one isolated scenario, yes you're right.
It was an unusual one though, so I"ll give you another.
W160NTFPRI1:\folder_4

Is that easier to remember or type than this?
E:\folder_4

You could just as easily mount that remote volume locally and type
/folder_4 or /mnt/folder_4.

I agree that if enough people really want to use the volume
name instead, it would be nice to have MS add that ability,
but not use it instead of volume letters. Why wouldn't MS
stick with conventions that work in DOS anyway?

I would imagine it's due to all of the legacy software and that is
actually a good reason to keep support for drive letters.

You're being arbitrary.
There is no reason they can't be used and no reason why they
would be obsolete.

You're correct... I should have said, drive letters are obsolete in a
modern networked world, but they are still relevant in a world of
obsolete software (which ufortunately is the world we live in.)

Well if you want to nitpick, windows doesn't use the volume
name either beyond an association to the drive, which is
essentially what the letter is, too.

Essentially, but I still think it's easier to have one root volume
rather than have files scattered among multiple root volumes.

I can see that you must have a hard time using windows.
Good luck getting the entire world to change but of all the
thing wrong with windows, (IMO), these are so far down the
list that I really hope MS isn't spending their time on
them.

Yes, I have an extremely hard time using windows. When you have to do
any systems programming or scripting that makes RPC calls and have to
start typing stuff like "C:\\\\\\\\windows\\\\\\\\system32" or
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\\\\\\\Software\\\\\\\\Microsoft\\\\\\\\" etc...
it gets ugly fast.

 

[Ian East]

Bring them on. UNIX is the greatest OS ever invented. How we got stuck
with this pathetic POS Windows is something else.

I'm not a Windows hater either and I definitely love ActiveDirectory
and Exchange in a corporate environment. I just wish MS would stop
trying to make things difficult on people that have to live in a
Multi-OS world. They have made steps I admit. They finally got rid
of their crappy NT4 directory services and replaced it with an LDAP
compliant version (ActiveDirectory). Their Intranet software is
definitely the best but their Internet software is crappy which is why
most companies use some type of *nix for anything on the web (As of
Sept2005, 20% MS, 80% non-MS as far as web sites). The problem I have
is that like many Internet companies, our corporate infrastructure is
based on Windows, but our production site is based on Linux. The
business people use Windows, the developers and engineers use Linux or
Solaris. Trying to bridge everything together is extremely difficult.
Their "Services for Unix" as they admit, is "for helping to migrate
Unix systems over to Windows". so it's not very helpful most of the
time for people who no intention of doing so. Enough rant... back to
typing \\\\\\\\\\

 

[Ian East]

Then there would be a patent fight.

When MS was developing DOS 2, they hired programmers who knew lots of
UNIX, which is why DOS 2 looks a lot like UNIX (redirection, filename
expansion, even pseudo-pipes). But they had to be careful of adopting
the look and feel of UNIX so they used the backslash instead of the
forward slash, just to look different.

I remember my first Zenith Data Systems 8086 (that ran DOS 2.1) with 2
(count 'em 2) 5.25 360K floppy disk drives and those days of
programming BASICA when I was a kid. It sure was an upgrade over the
TRS80. I digress.

But, I'm not sure that's the reason they used the backslash. DOS is
much more like VMS than Unix and they didn't seem too afraid to borrow
heavily from DEC, who would much more likely to sue than UC Berkley.
Also, at the time, the backslash was a well established escape
sequence character in nearly everything except the DOS shell. Guess
that's one of Billy's early attempts at making life hard on everyone.

 

[kony]

Wouldn't it be easier to have just one /Program_Files rather than have
to figure out whether a program got installed on drive C, D, or E or
have to worry about files spread across different root volumes?

Why would I put files in /Program Files folder?
You must not deal with much data, I have over a TB in
mirrored arrays and then more on misc systems.

Plus, I don't store any data I want to retain, on same
partition as windows as windows always has the outside
chance of crapping all over itself and needing restored.
Windows' Repair Install is a nice concept but not reliable
enough for serious dependency, and having to weed through a
partition to extract data seems a bit more trouble than it's
worth when it's quite easy to separate data, or large apps.

As for large apps, I also include games on some systems.
Modern games are multiple GB each, how big do you want your
Windows paritition to be for performance reasons or backup
purposes?

You could just as easily mount that remote volume locally and type
/folder_4 or /mnt/folder_4.

Who said it wasn't local? You seem to be making
presumptions about others' uses based on your own.

I'm not claiming Windows conventions should be applied in
non-windows environments, but trying to make windows less
like windows is going to break some things if it isn't
backwards-compatible... and I'd already written that I see
no problem with ADDING support for what you want, so long as
it doesn't remove what already works.

I would imagine it's due to all of the legacy software and that is
actually a good reason to keep support for drive letters.

I should read ahead more often. ;-)

Keep in mind that Windows is targeted more towards average
users who think in terms of a local PC, not of networked
volumes. Not that there aren't a lot of windows users more
sophisticated, but I can't tell you how many times I've been
to peoples houses and wondered why they didn't even have a
LAN.

Essentially, but I still think it's easier to have one root volume
rather than have files scattered among multiple root volumes.

Easier? Not necessarily.
What do you do when there's more data than will fit on one
drive? Create a huge span?

"Scattered" is also arbitrary nonsense in this context.
Dividing data in logical ways allows better use or access
depending on purpose or security or backup, or ...

Yes, I have an extremely hard time using windows. When you have to do
any systems programming or scripting that makes RPC calls and have to
start typing stuff like "C:\\\\\\\\windows\\\\\\\\system32" or
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\\\\\\\Software\\\\\\\\Microsoft\\\\\\\\" etc...
it gets ugly fast.

I'm sure everyone wants MS to change all their software to
be easier for their "group" purpose. That's not what
windows is, as evidenced by the perpetual dumbing-down of
the UI with every version.

 

[Ian East]

Dirty operating system
They should redevelop it to be different and better.

They have and are.. It's more about Bill and his dirty little tricks
he uses to make sure life is difficult for people who have to mix *nix
and windows. The biggest shock was the MS adoption of LDAP
(ActiveDirectory). Later of course in typical MS fashion they tried to
distort it in subtle ways and make it incompatible with Unix then
backed off amidst the backlash.

 

[Ian East]

Why would I put files in /Program Files folder?
You must not deal with much data, I have over a TB in
mirrored arrays and then more on misc systems.

Wow.. and you're arguing for drive letters.. That's what volume names
simplify.

Plus, I don't store any data I want to retain, on same
partition as windows as windows always has the outside
chance of crapping all over itself and needing restored.
Windows' Repair Install is a nice concept but not reliable
enough for serious dependency, and having to weed through a
partition to extract data seems a bit more trouble than it's
worth when it's quite easy to separate data, or large apps.

RAID5 using SATA disks is already affordable to the desktop. I think
in a year or 2 it will be standard to provide redundancy. What's so
hard about allocating your data to different volumes than your OS?...
you can easily reinstall and remount your data volumes. I do it all
the time with MySQL databases

As for large apps, I also include games on some systems.
Modern games are multiple GB each, how big do you want your
Windows paritition to be for performance reasons or backup
purposes?

Well, MS tried to recoin Logical Volumes into their term Dynamic
Disks. You need more space to a volume? Allocate free space as
neccesary. If you need more add a new disk and allocate the space as
you see fit. It's much faster to have your data striped across many
disks and with unsymettric RAID5 capable controllers hitting the
desktop, I don't see the issue. Not sure what the backup issue is,
but when you're dealing with logical volumes you can take 'snapshots'.
Those are far more efficient than any other type of backup you can
do.

Who said it wasn't local? You seem to be making
presumptions about others' uses based on your own.

I'm not claiming Windows conventions should be applied in
non-windows environments, but trying to make windows less
like windows is going to break some things if it isn't
backwards-compatible... and I'd already written that I see
no problem with ADDING support for what you want, so long as
it doesn't remove what already works.

Agreed on this one. They should support legacy software, but should
encourage users to embrace new ways of doing things. Apple has been
doing this for years and Mac users are still loyal to Mac. I would
love to see MS offer their highly funtional Korn shell (available in
Services for Unix) in their server systems along with their highly
unfunctional DOS shell.

I should read ahead more often. ;-)

Keep in mind that Windows is targeted more towards average
users who think in terms of a local PC, not of networked
volumes. Not that there aren't a lot of windows users more
sophisticated, but I can't tell you how many times I've been
to peoples houses and wondered why they didn't even have a
LAN.

Agreed too... But as people are having high speed internet access and
LAN's in their homes, this paradigm should start changing.

Easier? Not necessarily.
What do you do when there's more data than will fit on one
drive? Create a huge span?

Again.. Logical volumes. Add space to the volume as you need it. If
you run out of space on your disks add another disk. If you're
worried about redundancy, RAID5 has already hit the desktop

"Scattered" is also arbitrary nonsense in this context.
Dividing data in logical ways allows better use or access
depending on purpose or security or backup, or ...

c:\Program Files
d:\Program Files
e:\Program Files

doesn't seem logical to me

/Program_Files

Does. Or.

D:\files
E:\files
F:\files

Doesn't seem logical. A logical volume of

/files

that can span disks and grow as needed is much easier.

I'm sure everyone wants MS to change all their software to
be easier for their "group" purpose. That's not what
windows is, as evidenced by the perpetual dumbing-down of
the UI with every version.

Well, the backslash was a well established escape sequence character
in everything except the DOS shell during that time so it really makes
no sense to me why they chose it. But yes.... I tried out the new
Vista Beta... I'm hoping they have some redeming feature about it to
use it. The only thing about WinXP was RDP (Remote Desktop).
Transparent Icons and Window borders that make my 2.8GHz PC with 1.5GB
of RAM run like a 286 ain't going to do it. Granted it's beta but
it's already Beta2 and shouldn't be that bad.

 

[kony]

c:\Program Files
d:\Program Files
e:\Program Files

doesn't seem logical to me

This pretty well summarizes the situation, that you keep
presuming it's either your way or something like what you
wrote above. You are doing the exact opposite of what i
wrote, not dividing it logically but arbitrarily dividing
similar things. If you can't figure out any other way to
get your data organized then you are speaking only of what
would work for you.

/Program_Files

Does. Or.

D:\files
E:\files
F:\files

Doesn't seem logical. A logical volume of

/files

that can span disks and grow as needed is much easier.

I guess you just want to make everything hard on yourself if
you feel the only alternatives are your spanned volumes or
the example above. This discussion is pretty much pointless
so go ahead and pretend you have no other option if you want
to.

 

[Victor Smith]

On Sun, 16 Oct 2005 01:43:53 -0700, Ian East
snip

I guess you just want to make everything hard on yourself if
you feel the only alternatives are your spanned volumes or
the example above. This discussion is pretty much pointless
so go ahead and pretend you have no other option if you want
to.

I think Ian's argument leans too heavily on the supposition that home
and business users have an inclination to learn the technicalities of
enterprise disk management, or that home users even need it.
Although I'm exposed to this at work I don't want any part of complex
space management strategies and software at my desk or at home.
At work there are full time professionals who are paid to manage and
safeguard networked dasd space, but that should all be transparent to
the user. I want my local space presented in the fashion most of us
have grown up with: a,b,c,d, etc.
00-FF would have worked as well, but 26 is enough.
Ian mentioned RAID 5 for home users. Although I've spent many hours
analysing hex dumps at work, I don't want RAID complexity on my home
box. It just - duh - complicates things, and presents additional
opportunities for data corruption and loss to occur.
In fact the worst data loss I've ever suffered was when I connected a
drive to a new controller which was RAID capable and somehow did
something like hit the enter key at the wrong time and blew my data
away. It was stupid, but stupid is what KISS is about.
With disks so cheap, and Ghost and other backup software so easy to
use, backing up drives/partitions/data is about as easy as it can get.
Yet, as seen here almost every day, apparently smart people are still
laboriously re-installing Win and apps, or talking about putting
drives in the freezer as a data recovery option. RAID will never
become common on home boxes when users won't even use something
as simple as the ABC's. Some "power-users" will make good use of it,
and I might install it to speed data access if I ever need it.
But I'm a gamer and do just fine with a good graphics card, memory
and UDMA 5.
Besides all that, most computers are still sold to the consumer with
only one hard drive.
If I were doing home computer support, I would counsel my customers
to purchase a second drive, preferably a third, Ghost or similar, and
instruct them on usage.
Maybe even contract to do their backups on a schedule.
Bet that would pay off big time in customer retention and referrals.

--Vic