Drive designation

[Guest]

I reimaged my computer, this computer has a second large hard drive that is
partioned into two drives.

The problem is now they are called D: and E:

The computer has two CD / DVD drives that now have defaulted to F: and G:

After using the computer for a bit, when I try to access the hard drive,
either D: or E:, Windows can not find it or tells me I don't have access to
them.

Before I reimaged, the second hard drive was F: and G:

I think windows gets confused. In fact when I first boot the computer and
go to My Computer, the hard drive (both partions) are there. Sometime later,
they disapper under My Computer. I have to reboot to get access to them
again.

I would like to redesignate the second hard drive to F: and G: and let the
CD / DVD remain the default D: and E:

Does this make sense to anyone?

Thanks
JWB

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I reimaged my computer, this computer has a second large hard drive that is
partioned into two drives.

The problem is now they are called D: and E:

The computer has two CD / DVD drives that now have defaulted to F: and G:

After using the computer for a bit, when I try to access the hard drive,
either D: or E:, Windows can not find it or tells me I don't have access to
them.

Before I reimaged, the second hard drive was F: and G:

I think windows gets confused. In fact when I first boot the computer and
go to My Computer, the hard drive (both partions) are there. Sometime later,
they disapper under My Computer. I have to reboot to get access to them
again.

I would like to redesignate the second hard drive to F: and G: and let the
CD / DVD remain the default D: and E:

Does this make sense to anyone?

Thanks
JWB

Run diskmgmt.msc, right-click the problem drives and
re-assign the drive letters.

 

[Mistoffolees]

I reimaged my computer, this computer has a second large hard drive that is
partioned into two drives.

The problem is now they are called D: and E:

The computer has two CD / DVD drives that now have defaulted to F: and G:

After using the computer for a bit, when I try to access the hard drive,
either D: or E:, Windows can not find it or tells me I don't have access to
them.

Before I reimaged, the second hard drive was F: and G:

I think windows gets confused. In fact when I first boot the computer and
go to My Computer, the hard drive (both partions) are there. Sometime later,
they disapper under My Computer. I have to reboot to get access to them
again.

I would like to redesignate the second hard drive to F: and G: and let the
CD / DVD remain the default D: and E:

Does this make sense to anyone?

Do as Pegasus writes and it will resolve the issues. And it
does make sense since the present system is a clone of the prior
system. Cloning does not alter the Windows Registry and this is
the reason why the CD/DVD drives needed to be re-assigned D and
E whilst the second HD, re-assigned to F and G.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the suggestion, I did as you said, BUT.. I still am having the
problem.

It "SEEMS" to me that after the computer has set idle for 30 minutes to an
hour, the second hard drive, which is particitioned to appear as two seperate
drive, now called, M: and P: (for music and photos) the drive disappears
under "My Computer" and is unaccessable via shortcuts I had created.

I need to reboot to once again see and access them.

Currently as I always have, I have the power settings turning off the hard
drives after 15 minutes. But I have always had this, and it does not affect
the C: drive.

Am I on the right track?

My resources on the computer are as follows:

C: - 250 G hard drive
D: - CD / DVD ROM drive
E: - DVD burner
M: - particioned hard drive
P: - particitioned hard drive (M: and P: are the same physical harddrive)



Thanks again,

JWB

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Drives don't just "disappear". Take a screen snapshot of what
diskmgmt.msc shows you both before and after the disappearing
act and post what you see.

 

[Guest]

Pegasus,

How do I post a screen shot? I have them as you requested but I can't figure
out how to post them...

Thanks,
JWB

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

1. Open diskmgmt.msc
2. Press Alt+PrintScreen on your keyboard
3. Open your word processor
4. Press Ctrl+V on your keyboard
5. Save the file
6. Zip it up and attach it to your reply.
Zipping may be necessary because many newsreaders
have a fairly low limit on the size of attachments.

 

[Guest]

OK, I'm feeling like it must be staring me in the face, but that was my
original plan was to attach the screen shot, but I don't see any option or
way to 'attach' anything to my reply.

What am I missing?

thanks for your patience.

JWB

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

In my own newsreader (Outlook Express) there is an "Attach"
picture on the toolbar. You did not say which newsreader you
use, hence I can't help you there. If you get desperate then you
could use the Help facility for your news reader. If you get
really desperate then you could send the screenshot to this
address: (e-mail address removed). Replace both "z"s with "s"s
and say here that you sent it - I don't normally monitor this
mail box.

 

[Guest]

OK, I am going to send it via your email. I have been accessing these
threads via the microsoft.com web page and I guess not using a 'newsreader'.
That will be a task for another day, I bet it would make all this much
easier, but I am not sure how to set that up. I use Outlook, not Outlook
Express.

The screenshots are coming to your email. Thanks for that option.

JWB

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

In your first post you wrote:
==================
I reimaged my computer, this computer has a second large hard drive that is
partioned into two drives.

The problem is now they are called D: and E:

The computer has two CD / DVD drives that now have defaulted to F: and G:

After using the computer for a bit, when I try to access the hard drive,
either D: or E:, Windows can not find it or tells me I don't have access to
them.

Before I reimaged, the second hard drive was F: and G:
==================
To start with, let's agree on semantics. To avoid confusion, I prefer
to call the physical thing a "disk", e.g. you bought a 300 GByte disk.
Each disk has at least one drive but sometimes more of them: drive C:,
drive D: etc.

You said in your first post that you bought a second disk. and that
you partitioned it into two drives. The screenshot you sent me shows
one single disk of 233 GBytes. No sign of the second disk!

You must check your BIOS settings. Does the BIOS recognise
the second disk? What size? And what about the boot-up messages?
Press the Pause key on your keyboard to freeze the boot-up
sequence (and Enter to resume). Does the sequence show two disks?
If it does not then Windows will never show you the second disk!

 

[Guest]

Pegasus,

I am sorry for the sloppy symantics.

I hope you received the 'screen shot' I sent to your email address you
provided.

You will see two different 'screen shots' one from right after a re-boot
that shows:

Disk 0: Drive M: and Drive: P
Disk 1: Drive C:

the second screen shot which is taken anytime after about 30 minutes of a
re-boot that only shows:

Disk 1: Drive C:

Windows does recognize the second Disk that I've installed, but only for a
little while, then it disappears from access. It is no longer visible or
accessable from 'My computer', discmgmt.msc or any shortcut or application
that tries to access it.

I hope this clears things up and again I apologize for the sloppy symantics.

Thanks,
JWB

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

The question remains: Does the BIOS see both disks,
and are they both visible in the boot-up messages?

 

[Guest]

Yes, when I reboot and stop at the BIOS, BOTH drives are visible.

- 1st drive PM - Maxtor 7y250m0
- 2nd drive 3S - Maxtor 6l250r0

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

You might have some compatibility problems between
your hard disk controller and the new disk, causing it
to spin down and stop. This is a serious event and I
would expect to see some relevant events logged in
the Event Logger.

To see just when exactly it happens, you could get
the Task Scheduler to run this batch file at boot time:
@echo off
echo %date% %time:~0,5% %computername% rebooted >> c:\disk.log
:again
set status=bad
dir d:\ | find /i "Volume in drive D:" && set status=OK
echo %date% %time:~0,5% Status=%status%>> c:\disk.log
ping localhost -n 61 > nul
goto again

When the disk disappears, examine c:\disk.log.

 

[Guest]

In the mean time, I changed the power settings. I found that it had the hard
drives shutting down after 15 minutes. Apparently they would not 'wake' up,
perhaps a setup problem I need to re-run with the Maxtor drive.

For now, it is working, I changed the power settings to 'never' shut hard
drives down.

If it continues to act up, I'll try your next suggestion.

Thanks,

JWB