External Harddrive goes a wandering

[Pamelaj]

Hello, I have a great little external hard drive for holding photos, music library, etc. Ever since its install it's resided as the "E" drive. Recently it began appearing in the F drive, and as a result, many of my programs are having trouble finding their files.

I asked my son if he'd borrowed or moved anything while I was out of town, but he insists he has not. Any ideas on what caused this,a nd what I should do?

Thanks,
Pamelaj

 

[TriplexDread]

Hiya Pamela,

Just goto the drive properties and reissue the drive its original letter. The rest of the drives after it will adjust theirs automatically

I'm assuming your using XP

So;

Start/setting's/control panel/administrative tools/computer managment/disk management

highlight he drive you want to change back and right click to bring up a menu

then choose 'change drive letter and path's'

 

[muckshifter]

welcome to PCR

You are correct, it's been tampered with ... try pulling individual nails from your son's fingers, works for me.

You should be able to change it back using this article, providing you are using XP

I think, judging by your question & queries of said son, you are aware that external HDs can change 'drive letter' on the fly, simply plugging in another HD before the original can have some 'great' affects.

If you, or any of our readers need to brush up on how MS assigns a drive letter, have a nice read over at ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_letter_assignment

...

 

[Pamelaj]

Ok, I've read both (so far) replies, and am all over changing the drive letter back. However, I am getting this one dialogue as I'm getting ready to do this: "Changing the drive letter of a volume may cause some programs to no longer work"

I'm guessing this really won't affect me, but thought I would check. I HAVE installed a few larger programs on this hard drive that i didn't have room for on the C drive.

 

[TriplexDread]

LOL @ nails

yeah removable drives/letters assignments change when plugging/unplugging drives

taa mucks i shoulda mentioned that

 

[muckshifter]

yep, that is a standard warning, you can read it in the link I posted.


To save 'problems' in the future, I suggest installing to the 'C' drive ... that is one constant that shouldn't change.

 

[Pamelaj]

LOL @ nails

LOL @ nails

yeah removable drives/letters assignments change when plugging/unplugging drives

taa mucks i shoulda mentioned that

Funny, I shared that recommendation with my son, and he didn't find it that amusing!

 

[Pamelaj]

yep, that is a standard warning, you can read it in the link I posted.


To save 'problems' in the future, I suggest installing to the 'C' drive ... that is one constant that shouldn't change.

OK. I'll go ahead and click.

Well, does anyone have recommendations for a smooth way to move "data" only to the external drive (to make room for all programs)?

Part of the reason I just BOUGHT the external was the need for space and the horrible lack of TIME to get into the C and work on it. Right now I've got a bit of free time . . .

And for the programs installed on the external drive -- if they're from a downloaded source, would I have to re-download to get them over to the C?

 

[muckshifter]

Invest in a bigger / new first drive ... keep the older one as another backup drive.

Cheap, easy, effective ... saves on nails.

 

[Pamelaj]

Invest in a bigger / new first drive ... keep the older one as another backup drive.

Cheap, easy, effective ... saves on nails.

Yes, this is what son-with-the-as-yet-intact-nails originally suggested. I know he is right -- I just couldn't handle the stress of moving all the stuff. What -- mirroring entire drive with programs onto something else? Which meant I needed the external anyway, right?

I think this may have been the direction in which I was moving anyway -- the external was the first increment. Time, time, it's always time!

Also, I'm not sure I have enough slots to keep the old drive. This requires digging back into all the stuff I researched the first time (time, time)!

 

[Abarbarian]

Take the side of the pc and you will see if there is a spare slot for the HDD.

http://www.microsoft.com/prophoto/downloads/synctoybeta.aspx

This freebie from Microsoft may help with transfering files.

http://www.popularshareware.com/Acronis-Migrate-Easy-description-796.html

This may be of use.

 

[Pamelaj]

nnnnnnnooooo! Well, OK. Will have the boy do it. I don't do the crawling under the console, unplugging all the items and lifting up of the CPU. We have the resident stevedore do the heavy labor!

Thanks, will read article about transferring files.

 

[Abarbarian]

https://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=13286363#post13286363

This would be ideal for you. Only available for a short time as a freebie.