Formatting on drive wiped out when testing another drive

[John Doe]

Pennywise DerryMaine.Gov wrote:

Wrong again. The drive letters are much more persistent with the
NT/2K/XP family.

Whatever you mean by "more persistent", you can in fact easily
change drive letters in Windows XP.

 

[Rod Speed]

(e-mail address removed) wrote

No predicament,
Bullshit.

nor my style.

More bullshit.

My second HD was always D due to this (old boot up drive) and
I was triple booting at the time. Can't get any clear'r than that.

Doesnt have the remotest relevance to your claim that NT/2K/XP
family behaves the same way as the Win9x/ME family when a drive
with an active partition is added to an existing config drive letter wise.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=234048

 

[Rod Speed]

Whatever you mean by "more persistent",

The drive letter doesnt change when you move drives
around on the controllers or add extra drives as the OP did.

you can in fact easily change drive letters in Windows XP.

Separate issue entirely.

And it aint that easy to change the boot drive letter either.

 

[docsavage20]

You can certainly get the partition table
corrupted that way, but not for that reason.

Can the partition table be fixed without reformatting?

 

[Pennywise]

(e-mail address removed) wrote:

|>
|>Rod Speed wrote:
|>
|>> You can certainly get the partition table
|>> corrupted that way, but not for that reason.

|>Can the partition table be fixed without reformatting?

NTFS, yes but it's not easy, a second table can be used to restore the
first. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q153973

The article mentions using Disk Probe that can be download'd from
http://jasmel90.com/TechNotes/QCS_Take_Home/NTRESKIT/ (DSKPROBE.*)

This assumes you can boot into windows, use LiveCD if you can't and
use tools provided on that cd http://www.knoppix.org/

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Whatever you mean by "more persistent",

That those windozes keep a record ...

you can in fact easily change drive letters in Windows XP.

.... and that you can change that record.

That record wouldn't be of much use if it wasn't persistent (the changes ignored).
[garbage snipped]

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

That is simply wrong, if you mean they operate like the Win9x family. The
NT line scans for and assigns the drive letters differently (which is one
reason why people sometimes discover their system drive is 'E:', or 'F:' or
whatever, instead of 'C:'), handles partitions differently, and drive
letter assignments are persistent regardless of where the physical drive is
located, or 'moved' to.

I.E. If you have a partition labeled 'C:' on a drive strapped as master on
IDE0 it will still be 'C:' even if you move the drive to IDE1, or change it
to slave, and add another drive physically 'before' it.

Nope.
Only if you boot from floppy, or that both are bootable and the drive on
IDE0 is booted in both situations.

In Win9X, the old 'C:' would become 'D:' and the new, 'physically before
it' partition would be 'C:'

Only if you boot from floppy, or that both are bootable and the drive on
IDE0 is booted in both situations.

because Win9x scans for and assigns drive letters on every boot.

Actually takes them from DOS. Hence is dependent of device enumeration
in DOS which will claim C: as the bootpartition, independent of what IDE
the drive resides on and is booted from, from BIOS.

Take a simple 1 partition per drive, two drives, master and slave on IDE0
and say one is 200gig and the other 100gig, to distinguish them:

Original configuration Physically swap master/slave

Drive 200gig 100gig 100gig 200gig
Master Slave Master Slave

Win9X C: D: C: D:

Only if you boot from floppy or that both are bootable (identical) and
the Master is (kept) booted.

WinXP C: D: D: C:

It's more complicated than that when both are bootable and the
drive on Master is kept booted and whether it is the first time that
Windoze sees the drive or it is a next time after which Windoze made
a note of it. Can also make a difference if the volume is dynamic.

If you keep booting the bootable drive it doesn't matter on what
IDE the other drive is on, unless there is yet another drive and
then it depends where this drive is on the IDE controller.

In other words, it depends on how the IDE devices are enumerated
and/or wether Windows has seen the volume before or not.

 

[Rod Speed]

Yep.

Only if you boot from floppy,

Wrong, that's the situation where the drive letters can
change when a drive is moved to a different controller.

Essentially because the database that is used to ensure that
the drive letters persist isnt used when you boot from floppy.

or that both are bootable and the drive
on IDE0 is booted in both situations.

Mangled again.

Only if you boot from floppy,

Wrong, that happens if you boot from the hard drive too.

or that both are bootable and the drive
on IDE0 is booted in both situations.

You're now claiming that the NT/2K/XP family behaves the
same as the Win9x/ME family and that is just plain wrong
as far as how the drive letters are allocated is concerned.

Actually takes them from DOS.

No it doesnt, most obviously when a drive isnt visible at
the DOS level because it doesnt have a drive type entry
in the cmos and Win enumerates that drive at boot time.

Hence is dependent of device enumeration in DOS

Pity about the situation where DOS doesnt see a drive and Win does.

which will claim C: as the bootpartition, independent of what
IDE the drive resides on and is booted from, from BIOS.

Yes, but that isnt true of the letter the non boot drives get, and that
was what was being discussed, NOT the letter the boot drive gets.

Only if you boot from floppy or that both are bootable (identical)

God knows what that 'identical' is supposed to mean.

and the Master is (kept) booted.

And that in spades.

And his example isnt the situation being discussed anyway.
What was being discussed was what happens to the letters
of the NON BOOT DRIVES, when you continue to boot of
the same drive and have a drive with an active primary dos
partition added to the list of drives but dont boot from it.

It's more complicated than that when both are bootable

That wasnt the situation being discussed tho.

and the drive on Master is kept booted

Presumably you mean you keep booting the master.

and whether it is the first time that Windoze sees the drive
or it is a next time after which Windoze made a note of it.

Mangled again. Drive letters dont change on the second boot.

Can also make a difference if the volume is dynamic.

Unnecessary complication.

If you keep booting the bootable drive it doesn't matter on what
IDE the other drive is on, unless there is yet another drive and
then it depends where this drive is on the IDE controller.

Not with the NT/2K/XP family. You can keep booting the
same drive, and rearrange the drives on the controllers
as much as you like, and the drive letters remain the same,
essentially because the NT/2K/XP family keeps track of
what letters have been allocated to particular drives.

And that is just as true of the situation where you add
an extra drive as was actually being discussed too.

In other words, it depends on how the IDE devices are enumerated
and/or wether Windows has seen the volume before or not.

Not as far as the letters drives which have already
been enumerated retain. It just adds a new letter
to a drive when its been seen for the first time
when added to the set of existing drives.

Unlike with the 9x/ME family which allocates letters all
over again at boot time, no persistence of drive letters.

 

[Rod Speed]

(e-mail address removed) wrote

Rod Speed wrote

Can the partition table be fixed without reformatting?

Yes, most of the recovery apps can do that and its usually
possible to do it manually too if you know the basics like
where each partition resides on the drive tracks wise etc.

 

[David Maynard]

Nope.

'Fraid so.

Only if you boot from floppy,

Nope, and in no case are we discussing booting from floppy.

or that both are bootable and the drive on
IDE0 is booted in both situations.

Nope, and in all cases we are obviously talking about booting the same
system because it is how that system handles drive enumeration that is the
topic, not how some 'other' system, be it 'another' XP, or 'another' Win9x,
or Linux, or Beos, or DOS on floppy, handles it.

Only if you boot from floppy, or that both are bootable and the drive on
IDE0 is booted in both situations.

Nope. Win9x reassigns drive letters on each boot.

Actually takes them from DOS. Hence is dependent of device enumeration
in DOS which will claim C: as the bootpartition, independent of what IDE
the drive resides on and is booted from, from BIOS.
Nope.




Only if you boot from floppy or that both are bootable (identical) and
the Master is (kept) booted.
Nope.



It's more complicated than that when both are bootable and the
drive on Master is kept booted and whether it is the first time that
Windoze sees the drive or it is a next time after which Windoze made
a note of it.

All of which is irrelevant since booting a different system is not booting
the same system.

And try to stay on track. If the "Original configuration" is C:, D:, as
clearly stated, then obviously the second drive has been seen and Windows
"made note" of it (if it was XP, that is).

Can also make a difference if the volume is dynamic.

A dynamic volume is not "Take a simple 1 partition per drive."

If you keep booting the bootable drive it doesn't matter on what
IDE the other drive is on, unless there is yet another drive and
then it depends where this drive is on the IDE controller.

It doesn't matter with XP because the drive assignments persist but it does
with Win9x. That's the point.

In other words, it depends on how the IDE devices are enumerated
and/or wether Windows has seen the volume before or not.

With XP, yes, but not with Win9x as Win9x has no 'seen the drive before'
memory of letter assignments like XP does.

Persistence of drive assignments is also how people (often) get their
'clone' of XP messed up when they add a new drive and 'move' the system to
it. They (often) first add the drive in and boot the system, partition and
format it, which causes XP to identify the drive/partition and assign a
letter. Then they 'clone' the old drive to the new one, which copies the
registry containing the drive assignments. Then, when they remove the old
drive and attempt to boot from the 'new', exact copy, it blue screens
because the 'new' drive is D:, as it was assigned when they made the
formatted partition, and boot cannot find the system partition. It's worse
yet if they simply swap drive positions, keeping both drives installed,
because it will 'appear' to work but it's still operating off the old drive
because is still labeled 'C:' regardless of having physically swapped the
drives.

None of that is a problem with Win9x because it reassigns drive letters
upon boot so the 'new' drive become whatever it is from wherever you've
placed it in the hardware chain and if that's IDE0 Master then, poof, it's
C: regardless of where its been before because there's no 'memory' of it.

Win9x has the 'reverse' problem. It will fail to boot (properly) if the
system drive is physically moved to a different position because then it's
no longer C: but XP will work just fine because it's still 'C:', regardless.

 

[Rod Speed]

'Fraid so.


Nope, and in no case are we discussing booting from floppy.


Nope, and in all cases we are obviously talking about booting the same
system because it is how that system handles drive enumeration that
is the topic, not how some 'other' system, be it 'another' XP, or
'another' Win9x, or Linux, or Beos, or DOS on floppy, handles it.



Nope. Win9x reassigns drive letters on each boot.



All of which is irrelevant since booting a different system is not
booting the same system.

And try to stay on track. If the "Original configuration" is C:, D:,
as clearly stated, then obviously the second drive has been seen and
Windows "made note" of it (if it was XP, that is).


A dynamic volume is not "Take a simple 1 partition per drive."



It doesn't matter with XP because the drive assignments persist but
it does with Win9x. That's the point.



With XP, yes, but not with Win9x as Win9x has no 'seen the drive
before' memory of letter assignments like XP does.

Persistence of drive assignments is also how people (often) get their 'clone' of XP
messed up when they add a new drive and 'move' the system to it.

Nope, it aint persistence thats the problem with cloning.

They (often) first add the drive in and boot the system, partition and format it, which
causes XP to identify the
drive/partition and assign a letter. Then they 'clone' the old drive to the new one,
which copies the registry containing the drive assignments. Then, when they remove the
old drive and attempt to boot
from the 'new', exact copy, it blue screens

No it doesnt. If the original drive is
unplugged, it boots off the clone fine.

If both drives are visible to XP on the first boot of the clone,
it will still boot fine. The problem is that when the original
drive is formatted or removed, the boot of the clone will
fail, because the boot involves files off both drives.

And it doesnt blue screen, it just fails to boot with an error message.

because the 'new' drive is D:, as it was assigned when they made the formatted
partition,

That wont survive the clone if the clone op copys the MBR.

and boot cannot find the system partition.

Thats just plain wrong too. You can boot a D drive fine.

It's worse yet if they simply swap drive positions, keeping both drives installed,
because it will 'appear' to work but it's still operating off the old drive because is
still labeled 'C:' regardless of having physically swapped the drives.

Its more complicated than that too, the boot isnt done by drive letter.

None of that is a problem with Win9x because it reassigns drive
letters upon boot so the 'new' drive become whatever it is from
wherever you've placed it in the hardware chain and if that's IDE0
Master then, poof, it's C: regardless of where its been before
because there's no 'memory' of it.

Just as true with XP if you remove the original drive before
booting the clone so the first boot off the clone never sees
the original. XP will claim to have found new hardware, ask
to be allowed to reboot, and then boot off the drive fine.

Win9x has the 'reverse' problem. It will fail to boot (properly) if the system drive is
physically moved to a different position because then it's no longer C:

That varys too. If there is only one drive, you can certainly
move it to the second controller and boot off that fine.

but XP will work just fine because it's still 'C:', regardless.

And the persistent drive letters with XP means that you
can add another drive with an active partition on it without
affecting any of the drive letters that were set before the
new drive is added. And thats the situation being discussed
which is relevant to the OP.

 

[David Maynard]

Nope, it aint persistence thats the problem with cloning.

It most certainly is. Why do you suppose none of this was an issue prior to
drive letter persistence?

No it doesnt. If the original drive is
unplugged, it boots off the clone fine.

No or, rather, 'maybe'. First, I said, 'often', not that it
always does or that it 'must'. It depends on how the clone is made but the
default for many, if not most, cloners preserves the drive and partition
IDs so the new drive will be the originally assigned letter, whether the
old drive is there or not, and boot will fail. In those cases simply
removing the old drive will not 'fix' it or make it work.

If both drives are visible to XP on the first boot of the clone,
it will still boot fine. The problem is that when the original
drive is formatted or removed, the boot of the clone will
fail, because the boot involves files off both drives.

That's what I said.

And it doesnt blue screen, it just fails to boot with an error message.

Sorry for the 'wrong color', as if that matters.

That wont survive the clone if the clone op copys the MBR.

Simply copying the MBR won't clear the IDs either, depending on the program
and what command flags you set, because they know the MBR format and to
either clear, or not, the IDs.

Thats just plain wrong too. You can boot a D drive fine.

I didn't say one could not boot a D: drive and what I did say is correct if
you actually read it.

Its more complicated than that too,

Not in the scenario I presented it isn't.

the boot isnt done by drive letter.

I didn't say it was.

Just as true with XP if you remove the original drive before
booting the clone so the first boot off the clone never sees
the original. XP will claim to have found new hardware, ask
to be allowed to reboot, and then boot off the drive fine.

That 'can' happen if the IDs are cleared but it is by no means assured and
drive persistence is the reason many people find their cloned disk won't boot.

That varys too.

So do phases of the moon but that wasn't included in the stated scenario
either.

If there is only one drive, you can certainly
move it to the second controller and boot off that fine.

Irrelevant as the stated scenario was two drives.

And the persistent drive letters with XP means that you
can add another drive with an active partition on it without
affecting any of the drive letters that were set before the
new drive is added. And thats the situation being discussed
which is relevant to the OP.

The situation being discussed is whether he knew which drive was 'C' and
'D' and that if he assumes they 'change' when their location does, ala
Win9x, then he's been working on the wrong drive.

 

[Rod Speed]

It most certainly is.
Nope.

Why do you suppose none of this was an issue prior to drive letter persistence?

Its a coincidence. Its actually due to the way ntldr
works, nothing to do with drive letter pesistence.

It cant be due to drive letter persistence if being careful
to ensure that XP cant see the original drive on the first
boot of the clone ensures that the clone boots fine.

No

Fraid so, I do that all the time when upgrading the boot drive.
ALWAYS works fine as long as you dont allow XP to see the
original drive on the first boot of the clone. You are welcome
to plug the original drive back in again after you have booted
the clone with the original not visible and it still boots fine both
with and without the original drive connected.

And I was just commenting on your BLUE SCREEN claim there.

or, rather, 'maybe'. First, I said, 'often', not that it always does or that it 'must'.
It depends on how the clone is made but the default for many, if not most, cloners
preserves the drive and partition IDs so the new drive will be the originally assigned
letter, whether the old drive is there or not, and boot will fail.

Have fun explaining how the boot works
fine if the original drive isnt connected.

In those cases simply removing the old drive will not 'fix' it or make it work.

Removing the old drive FOR THE FIRST BOOT
OF THE CLONE, sees the clone boot fine.

That's what I said.

No its not, you said it will BLUE SCREEN. It doesnt.

It just whines about not being able to find
some of the files needed for the boot.

Sorry for the 'wrong color', as if that matters.

Corse it matters.

Simply copying the MBR won't clear the IDs either,

Different matter entirely. When the clone copys the entire
contents of the hard drive, including the IDs, there is
absolutely no way for the first boot of the clone to even
realise that the drive has been cloned, so it can fail.

The only thing that is different is the drive serial
number thats put there at manufacturing time.

depending on the program and what command flags you set, because they know the MBR
format and to either clear, or not, the IDs.

See above.

I didn't say one could not boot a D: drive and what I did say is correct if you actually
read it.

No it isnt. There is no problem finding
the system partition, ntldr finds it fine.

And the error message doesnt say that it cant find the system
partition, it says that it cant find particular files instead.

Not in the scenario I presented it isn't.

Yes it is.

I didn't say it was.

Yes you did.

That 'can' happen if the IDs are cleared but it is by no means assured

Have fun explaining how the boot off the clone ALWAYS
works fine as long as you ensure that the first boot of

and drive persistence is the reason many people find their cloned disk won't boot.

Nope, works fine as long as the first
boot of the clone cant see the original.

So do phases of the moon but that wasn't included in the stated scenario either.

Never could bullshit its way out of a wet paper bag.

Irrelevant as the stated scenario was two drives.

Nope, it'll still boot fine as long as only the
boot drive has an active primary dos partition.

The situation being discussed is whether he knew which drive was 'C' and 'D' and that if
he assumes they 'change' when their location
does, ala Win9x, then he's been working on the wrong drive.

Wrong again. The OP assumed that the drives letters wouldnt
have changed, and that assumption is correct with XP. So he
cant have accidentally formatted the drive with his data on.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Not if you keep booting the drive on IDE0 and that drive is a (near enough)
copy of the other drive. The drive letters are kept in the registry and if you
boot the other drive -that was on IDE1 first- a new registry is in effect and
it will know nothing of the registry of the system on the drive that was pre-
viously on IDE0 and that is now on IDE1.

However, if you boot the drive on IDE1 you are correct but then the same
goes for Win9x as the boot drive is enumerated first and it doesn't matter
on which IDE it is.

'Fraid so.

Fraid not.

Nope, and in no case are we discussing booting from floppy.

Nope, and in all cases we are obviously talking about booting the same

system

Which is Windows in general, or a particular install of Windows, or just the
same PC without change of bootorder, or what? System means so many things.

because it is how that system handles drive enumeration that is the
topic, not how some 'other' system, be it 'another' XP, or 'another' Win9x,
or Linux, or Beos, or DOS on floppy, handles it.

I'm sorry, that is so rather ambiguous that I can't make heads or tails of it.

Nope.

Fraid so.

Win9x reassigns drive letters on each boot.

Another ambiguous comment. I never said it didn't.
If IDE1 is booted the old 'C:' is still C: and the old D: is still D:

Nope.

Fraid so.

Nope.

Fraid so.
If Slave is booted the old 'C:' is again C: and the old D: is still D: even
though it is on Master now, because the slave connection is enumerated
first by the bootorder change and the master gets next device number,
then the master on IDE1, then the slave on IDE1.

All of which is irrelevant since booting a different system is not booting
the same system.

Nope.
On NT flavors it makes a difference whether the configuration is seen
first or whether the situation has existed before and is now in conflict
with the new situation.

And try to stay on track.
PKB.

If the "Original configuration" is C:, D:, as clearly stated, then obviously
the second drive has been seen and Windows "made note" of it (if it was XP,
that is).

Nope.
If the D: drive was never booted before with a second disk present then it
will have no prior knowledge of that in its registry.
However, if you switch the drives and boot the same drive -now on slave-
that system knows of the drive that is now on master.

Fortunately, since the bootdrive is still enumerated as C: there is no conflict.
Things change when the volume is dynamic because Windows then saves the
driveletter (say D on the volume and when that volume is booted that drive
letter is used and a conflict arises because it's registry says it should be C:

A dynamic volume is not "Take a simple 1 partition per drive."

It doesn't matter with XP because the drive assignments persist but it does
with Win9x. That's the point.

Sorry, that's completely incomprehensible.

With XP, yes, but not with Win9x as Win9x has no 'seen the drive before'
memory of letter assignments like XP does.

Persistence of drive assignments is also how people (often) get their 'clone'
of XP messed up when they add a new drive and 'move' the system to it.
They (often) first add the drive in and boot the system, partition and
format it, which causes XP to identify the drive/partition and assign a
letter. Then they 'clone' the old drive to the new one, which copies the
registry containing the drive assignments. Then, when they remove the old
drive and attempt to boot from the 'new', exact copy, it blue screens
because the 'new' drive is D:, as it was assigned when they made the
formatted partition, and boot cannot find the system partition. It's worse
yet if they simply swap drive positions, keeping both drives installed,
because it will 'appear' to work but it's still operating off the old drive
because is still labeled 'C:' regardless of having physically swapped the
drives.

None of that is a problem with Win9x because it reassigns drive letters
upon boot so the 'new' drive become whatever it is from wherever you've
placed it in the hardware chain and if that's IDE0 Master then, poof, it's
C: regardless of where its been before because there's no 'memory' of it.

Win9x has the 'reverse' problem. It will fail to boot (properly) if the
system drive is physically moved to a different position because then it's
no longer C:

Nonsense.
The boot drive is always C: (unless it is a floppy disk in which case it is A

but XP will work just fine because it's still 'C:', regardless.

Unless it is a dynamic volume and was seen by another system that then
renamed it as D:

And your rant above about clones says different too.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

[huge snip]

Nope, it's just plain wrong. Bootdrive is always C: with Win9x.

And it only 'varys' if both have primary partitions *and* secondaries and Windows is
on the secondary.

So do phases of the moon but that wasn't included in the stated scenario either.

Irrelevant as the stated scenario was two drives.

Wrong. Doesn't matter with 'only' primaries.
The booted drive is C:, the other is D: nomatter where they are connected.

[snip]

 

[Rod Speed]

Nope, it's just plain wrong.

We'll see...

Bootdrive is always C: with Win9x.

I was commenting on the 'it will fail to boot
(properly), not on the drive letter claim.

It'll boot fine when there is just one active primary dos
partition and the drive that is on is physically moved to
a different position. Yes, it will certainly have the C letter.

And it only 'varys' if both have primary partitions
*and* secondaries and Windows is on the secondary.

Even that doesnt necessarily stop it booting properly,
all that does is affect the letters particular partions get.

Wrong. Doesn't matter with 'only' primaries.
The booted drive is C:, the other is D: no
matter where they are connected.

Correct, for once.

 

[Ralph Wade Phillips]

HD0: if you have CDEF and add HD1 with active partition you will then
have CEF - HD1's first partition will take over D: and the rest of the
partitions follow F (GH..)

You've not had much real life experience with the NT class OSes,
especially XP.

Because, as anyone who works with it knows, It Does Not Work Like
That.

Well, it can - if a) all the logical drives were formatted first
with FAT32, and b) nobody's EVERY run Disk Management to handle anything.

But if EITHER is wrong (i.e., the partitioning and formatting was
done by XP, OR Disk Manager was ever run to remap, say, an optical drive),
then it gets a persistent drive letter written in the PARTITION'S BOOT
BLOCK.

As is WELL documented by Microsoft and others.

Keep this up, and you'll look like ever more and anon someone who
doesn't have any idea what they're talking about.

Otherwise, please explain why so many XP machines get first logical
partition C, first optical D, and the added HD's primary partition as E ...

Or why removing the USB card readers doesn't automagically make an
E: or F: boot partition C: ...

RwP

RwP

 

[Ralph Wade Phillips]

Howdy!

(e-mail address removed) wrote

No you havent. You're just attempting to bullshit
your way out of your predicament now.

With NT 4, most likely - it didn't just default to writing the
persistent drive letter to the partition boot blocks unless you reallocated
the drive letter.

2K - Might have had the NT4 handling.

But he OBIOUSLY hasn't had much experience with XP - which writes
that damn persistent drive letter out ANYTIME Disk Manglement ****s over ...
err, touches a logical partition.

RwP

 

[Rod Speed]

With NT 4, most likely - it didn't just default to writing
the persistent drive letter to the partition boot blocks
unless you reallocated the drive letter.

Sure, but there is more than just what it puts in the partition
boot blocks, persistence with the NT/2K/XP family also
involves the database in the registry of the drive letters.

2K - Might have had the NT4 handling.

Yeah, forget exactly when that other stuff changed.

But he OBIOUSLY hasn't had much experience with XP

Yep, and hadnt even noticed that the drive enumation is done
completely differently in the NT/2K/XP family as far as letter
persistence is concerned to how its done in the 9x/ME family.

- which writes that damn persistent drive letter out ANYTIME
Disk Manglement ****s over ... err, touches a logical partition.

And not just disk management either, it also happens
whenever the boot phase finds a new physical drive
or partition thats been created outside XP too.

 

[Pennywise]

|>
|>|>
|>>
|>> HD0: if you have CDEF and add HD1 with active partition you will then
|>> have CEF - HD1's first partition will take over D: and the rest of the
|>> partitions follow F (GH..)
|>>
|>
|> You've not had much real life experience with the NT class OSes,
|>especially XP.
|>
|> Because, as anyone who works with it knows, It Does Not Work Like
|>That.
|>
|> Well, it can - if a) all the logical drives were formatted first
|>with FAT32, and b) nobody's EVERY run Disk Management to handle anything.
|>
|> But if EITHER is wrong (i.e., the partitioning and formatting was
|>done by XP, OR Disk Manager was ever run to remap, say, an optical drive),
|>then it gets a persistent drive letter written in the PARTITION'S BOOT
|>BLOCK.
|>
|> As is WELL documented by Microsoft and others.
|>
|> Keep this up, and you'll look like ever more and anon someone who
|>doesn't have any idea what they're talking about.

Ok one more time, Two Drives both are bootable one new one out of an
old machine both Fat16 second - on both systems NT - W2K with 98 on
C:.

HD0 was C HD1 was D: HD0 filled up the drive letters where HD1 took
over.




|> Otherwise, please explain why so many XP machines get first logical
|>partition C, first optical D, and the added HD's primary partition as E ...
|>
|> Or why removing the USB card readers doesn't automagically make an
|>E: or F: boot partition C: ...
|>
|> RwP
|>
|> RwP
|>