Formatting on drive wiped out when testing another drive

[David Maynard]

To see you actually snip a couple hundred lines of useless text in
one of your replies above has me pleasantly baffled.

Good boy.

Oh well, then it was all worth it.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I have a "mule" machine that I use for data recovery, virus scanning, et al.

Its one FAT32 partition? Gets mapped as "E" in it, the other mule
machine, or even on my girlfriend's laptop when I use a USB case to get
access to it (a few large files that I really didn't want to waste a DVD for
... )

And this is to prove what exactly? (rhetorical question)

I'd have to dig it out - but yes, I had mentioned that there are
times that XP can enumerate just like 9X did.

But the other methods DO take precedence ...

The "other" methods that you are still to give reference to .....

Since I made a stronger case in another branch which you chose to ignore
I'll assume that your drive letter writing to the partition boot blocks is
just as bogus as your BIOS drive letters.

 

[Ralph Wade Phillips]

Howdy!

And this is to prove what exactly? (rhetorical question)

That, somehow, the other machines all recognize it as E:, even
without a D: present, EVEN THOUGH IT'S FAT32.

Praytell how does it do that if it's not in the partition boot
blocks?

Now, a Win9X box stuffs it in the next available drive letter. But
the XP boxes all presume it's E:, even with C: and W: as the only other
visible drives.

Not so rhetorical, is it?

The "other" methods that you are still to give reference to .....

Setting the drive letter in the registry or in the boot blocks of
the partition. Again, see my note about the FAT32 drive above. Until you
can explain to me how the machines miss "D:" for this drive (although normal
Win9X drives get D: on the same machines), I'd say that somewhere in the
partition boot block this info is written. Where else could it be written
for it to come up as E: on all those machines when first connected?

Since I made a stronger case in another branch which you chose to ignore
I'll assume that your drive letter writing to the partition boot blocks is
just as bogus as your BIOS drive letters.

You know what assume is, don't you?

And I probably phrased that badly - it's how the BIOS enumerates the
primary partitions for those (which is about all I ever use nowadays), it's
up to the OS to handle the logical drives in the extended partitions.

And before you claim it doesn't - take a GOOD look at a machine that
supports booting off of USB, and has one of those multimedia card readers
attached. Stuff a bare drive in there, and install XP on it. Then tell me
what drive letter that first hard disk got, m'kay?

RwP