drive letter conflict

[Juve]

hi,

I suspect my MSI mobo (MS-6330 ATX) has died or the Award bios does
not work, although I have tried to update it online through the MSI
Live Update Series. The reason why I believe this is so is that I
when
get BSOD (which happens much too frequently) and I restart the
computer by pushing the reset button, I notice that BIOS does not
detect the harddrive. On the other hand, when I perform a cold start
the harddrive is recognized and the computer works fine for a while.


I have decided to dismount the harddrive which I believe is healthy
enough, to try and save some of the data on it. What I want to do is
to run it as an external disk and connect it via USB to another
computer that I have. My only worry is that there might be a drive
letter conflict.


The computer I want to connect the dismounted harddisk to has got one
drive with a C: partition and a D: partition. As usual the system is
on C: and data on D:


The dismounted harddrive has also got two partitions C: and D: only
on
this drive the system is on D: and the data is on C: Why the system
got on D: I don't know, but it happened after I reinstalled windows
on
the computer with the faulty mobo.


My question is, will this scenario cause a drive letter conflict?
Another thing, what about jumper settings? Both harddrives are set to
cable select, is that ok? or does jumper setting not apply to
external
harddrives? I hope someone would be kind enough to answer this
posting
to relieve me of my worries.Thanks.


Oivind

 

[Pen]

hi,

I suspect my MSI mobo (MS-6330 ATX) has died or the Award bios does
not work, although I have tried to update it online through the MSI
Live Update Series. The reason why I believe this is so is that I
when
get BSOD (which happens much too frequently) and I restart the
computer by pushing the reset button, I notice that BIOS does not
detect the harddrive. On the other hand, when I perform a cold start
the harddrive is recognized and the computer works fine for a while.


I have decided to dismount the harddrive which I believe is healthy
enough, to try and save some of the data on it. What I want to do is
to run it as an external disk and connect it via USB to another
computer that I have. My only worry is that there might be a drive
letter conflict.


The computer I want to connect the dismounted harddisk to has got one
drive with a C: partition and a D: partition. As usual the system is
on C: and data on D:


The dismounted harddrive has also got two partitions C: and D: only
on
this drive the system is on D: and the data is on C: Why the system
got on D: I don't know, but it happened after I reinstalled windows
on
the computer with the faulty mobo.


My question is, will this scenario cause a drive letter conflict?
Another thing, what about jumper settings? Both harddrives are set to
cable select, is that ok? or does jumper setting not apply to
external
harddrives? I hope someone would be kind enough to answer this
posting
to relieve me of my worries.Thanks.


Oivind

There's no problem. The OS will assign new drive letters to the USB
drive partitions.

 

[Juve]

Don't use online/windows bios update utilities, especially
on a system that may be instable as it is far more likely to
corrupt the bios.  Boot to DOS instead if you must update
the bios.

The bios does "work" because if it did not, the system
couldn't post and run at all.  The bios has a checksum that
confirms it is intact and if it weren't intact or not
working properly the problem would have been revealed when
the system was brand new.

I happen to have once had that model of board and sold it to
someone who still uses it today.  They do not have this
problem but I don't know what bios version it is using.  

Usually the hard drive not being detected can be an
instability issue or bad cabling.  Try another drive data
cable, and list the other major parts in your system
including the PSU make, model, and it's rating for 5V and
12V current on the label.

Otherwise instability can be caused by failed capacitors on
the motherboard or in the PSU.  Check the motherboard
capacitors now for venting, and if nothing else works,
lastly unplug the PSU then open it and check it's
capacitors.

Remember to check other common things like whether all fans
work and the system isn't clogged with dust.  

When you next get bluescreen(s), wrote down the error
message including the stop code, and note whether it is
usually the same error message(s) or different ones.

Run Memtest86+ for a few hours to check for memory faults.




There will not be a conflict, the OS will add a new drive
letter to correspond to this drive, it will not keep the
same drive letter it happened to have in the prior system.





This will not be a problem, assuming it is windows then
windows will assign the next two letters available, that
aren't being used by some other drive already in the system.




Try it using cable select still, if that doesn't work then
try Master, then if that doesn't work try Slave.

thanx a lot for much useful information
or