Help; drive letters have changed

[Bob]

Hi, well I thought it was too good to be true!
from my earlier thread about not being able to login to desktop, and then
I could just a few hours ago, now I can't again!

I thought I would try another bootmanager, GAG, but it seems it has done?
something to my drive letters, and my Windows OS's are not now C: Drive.
According to a dos version of Partition Magic 8, my Windows OS's now don't
have any drive letters and C: is on an extended partition with no OS on!

How can I get my drive ltters back to what they were please?

Thanks

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi, well I thought it was too good to be true!
from my earlier thread about not being able to login to desktop, and then
I could just a few hours ago, now I can't again!

I thought I would try another bootmanager, GAG, but it seems it has done?
something to my drive letters, and my Windows OS's are not now C: Drive.
According to a dos version of Partition Magic 8, my Windows OS's now don't
have any drive letters and C: is on an extended partition with no OS on!

How can I get my drive ltters back to what they were please?

Thanks

A good starting point would be to check out the GAG FAQs in order
to find out how it works and what exactly it does to your partitions.
I have aversion against boot managers that modify partitions (other than
hiding them or making them visible): It creates a dependency on the
boot manager and it entails obvious risks.

 

[Dave Patrick]

This article may help.

Unable to Log on if the Boot Partition Drive Letter Has Changed
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];249321

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Hi, well I thought it was too good to be true!
| from my earlier thread about not being able to login to desktop, and then
| I could just a few hours ago, now I can't again!
|
| I thought I would try another bootmanager, GAG, but it seems it has done?
| something to my drive letters, and my Windows OS's are not now C: Drive.
| According to a dos version of Partition Magic 8, my Windows OS's now don't
| have any drive letters and C: is on an extended partition with no OS on!
|
| How can I get my drive ltters back to what they were please?
|
| Thanks

 

[Dan Seur]

Bob - there seems to be a pattern here of inattention to the details of
what various boot managers do and don't do. When you're skiing downhill
in the woods at night without a flashlight, you can expect ugly
surprises. Changing skis won't help much. Some minimal reconnoitering in
daylight will.

 

[Bob H]

A good starting point would be to check out the GAG FAQs in order
to find out how it works and what exactly it does to your partitions.
I have aversion against boot managers that modify partitions (other than
hiding them or making them visible): It creates a dependency on the
boot manager and it entails obvious risks.

Ok, thanks. I removed powerboot again!, the ran fdisk /mbr again!
Inserted the Pqmagic floppy and guess what? no drive letters on any
partitions, so that was a better situation I thought.
Then I booted from the Win2k CD and from the recovery console I ran
'diskpart', and it showed that all my drive letters were as they should
be, like they were last week etc. So with that I rebooted and back into
win2k, again!

I'll go with xosl now I think being as though you think its ok, and
thanks for the help with that.

Thanks again

 

[Bob H]

This article may help.

Unable to Log on if the Boot Partition Drive Letter Has Changed
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];249321

Well it did to a point, but it didn't when I couldn't execute regedit32
etc from out of win2k. Although I am on a home network, my C: drive is
NOT shared, so from another machine I could not get to regedit32 or
anything there.
However I did manage to resolve my problem by un installing my other
bootmanger and running fdisk /mbr again, then booted from the win2k cd
to the recovery console and ran 'diskpart', which showed all my
partitions had recovered there original drive letters. And then I was
able to get back into win2k

Thanks anyway

 

[Dave Patrick]

It's regedt32.exe not 'regedit32'

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Well it did to a point, but it didn't when I couldn't execute regedit32
| etc from out of win2k. Although I am on a home network, my C: drive is
| NOT shared, so from another machine I could not get to regedit32 or
| anything there.
| However I did manage to resolve my problem by un installing my other
| bootmanger and running fdisk /mbr again, then booted from the win2k cd
| to the recovery console and ran 'diskpart', which showed all my
| partitions had recovered there original drive letters. And then I was
| able to get back into win2k
|
| Thanks anyway
|
| --
| Bob H
| Leeds UK

 

[Bob H]

Bob - there seems to be a pattern here of inattention to the details of
what various boot managers do and don't do. When you're skiing downhill
in the woods at night without a flashlight, you can expect ugly
surprises. Changing skis won't help much. Some minimal reconnoitering in
daylight will.

ooops, yes you are right there. I take your point, and some
reconnoitering will be done next.

I have solved the problem now by running fdisk /mbr again, the running
'diskpart' from the win2k cd/recovery console, wher it showed my
partitions had recovered there original letters

Thanks

 

[Dan Seur]

Bob - thanks for taking that in the right spirit!

For many years I used the old OS2 boot manager, with all its
limitations, and was quite happy with it. I'd have tried (as Dave
Patrick and BobI have) to offer some much more constructive suggestions,
but have never installed any of the more recent boot managers I've
downloaded, and which now sit in dusty corners on various archive
drives. I do admire folks with the kind of determination you're showing,
however. These days I just use W2k.

 

[Bob H]

It's regedt32.exe not 'regedit32'

ooops, yes so it is. My typo there
Thanks

 

[Bob H]

A good starting point would be to check out the GAG FAQs in order
to find out how it works and what exactly it does to your partitions.
I have aversion against boot managers that modify partitions (other than
hiding them or making them visible): It creates a dependency on the
boot manager and it entails obvious risks.

I tend to think that most bootmanagers do not like NTFS partitions :-(
As I said, I tried GAG, then lost my drive letters to all my FAT32
partitions. Then after I got them back earlier, I tried xosl on a 8mb
partition on my 2nd disk, but the install failed because a backup could
not be made on the floppy...not enough space on disk....it said.
So I sort of un installed it, then ran fdisk /mbr again, but guess what?
drive letters moved again.
My Win2k and Winxp OS's are both on NTFS partitions, and I also have 2
other NTFS partitions on my extended partition, and they did not have
any drive letters either. It was only after I had un installed xosl,
that I realised what was happening. Yes, boot managers shift the drive
letters from NTFS partitions to FAT32 partitiions, because that is what
happened here 3 times.

But there is only 1 bootmanager I have that does not do that, and that
is powerboot3.10.

Thanks