HELP: Using F: as main drive - Source of problem??

[BarryB]

My current system has two 80GB hard drives, DVD Burner, DVD ROM, a USB
card reader and a USB zip drive. Both USB devices are hooked up to a
USB Hub. The 2nd hard drive is used as my data drive and the other is
my main drive that I installed my software on. I'm using XP Home.

A few months ago, I had to replace an old hard drive with the new 80GB
hard drive. My friend was helping me and left the 2nd drive
connected. while formatting the new main drive.

After everything was done, I notice that I had no C:. Now, it appears
my PC's drive configuration is as follow: The card reader is my C:\,
the 2nd hard drive is D:\ , the two DVD drives are E:\ & G:\ and the
main drive is F:\. What kind of problem can this create?

Because of some problems I've been having, I'm wondering if this wacky
set up is the cause.

Here are the problems:
a. Whenever I try to run Ad Aware on this system, the sofware would
complain about not being able to access the needed files. This would
generally occur after I do a software update. I had to uninstall the
software.

b. This problem is rather intermitten and not always consistent.
Once in a while, I'll be viewing a web page in IE 7 and suddenly find
my computer shutting down and rebooting. All I'd get is that a device
driver is the cause.

I'd like to be more specific; except there doesn't seem to be a
pattern. Yesterday, I was looking at a static web site and it occur.
A couple of weeks ago, I was visiting a flash driven site and the same
thing. To make it more irritating is that it doesn't occur with
regularity.

I just know that it appears to be a conflict.

Any ideas??

 

[DL]

Generally only badly written software will baulk with no C, boot drive,
drive
But then how you moved your old boot apps to F may also be an issue

 

[BarryB]

Generally only badly written software will baulk with no C, boot drive,
drive
But then how you moved your old boot apps to F may also be an issue














- Show quoted text -

The new hard drive was formatted and I simply installed all of my apps
to the new drive. The other is simply used for storing my documents,
photos and etc.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

My current system has two 80GB hard drives, DVD Burner, DVD ROM, a USB
card reader and a USB zip drive. Both USB devices are hooked up to a
USB Hub. The 2nd hard drive is used as my data drive and the other is
my main drive that I installed my software on. I'm using XP Home.

A few months ago, I had to replace an old hard drive with the new 80GB
hard drive. My friend was helping me and left the 2nd drive
connected. while formatting the new main drive.

After everything was done, I notice that I had no C:. Now, it appears
my PC's drive configuration is as follow: The card reader is my C:\,
the 2nd hard drive is D:\ , the two DVD drives are E:\ & G:\ and the
main drive is F:\. What kind of problem can this create?

Because of some problems I've been having, I'm wondering if this wacky
set up is the cause.

Here are the problems:
a. Whenever I try to run Ad Aware on this system, the sofware would
complain about not being able to access the needed files. This would
generally occur after I do a software update. I had to uninstall the
software.

b. This problem is rather intermitten and not always consistent.
Once in a while, I'll be viewing a web page in IE 7 and suddenly find
my computer shutting down and rebooting. All I'd get is that a device
driver is the cause.

I'd like to be more specific; except there doesn't seem to be a
pattern. Yesterday, I was looking at a static web site and it occur.
A couple of weeks ago, I was visiting a flash driven site and the same
thing. To make it more irritating is that it doesn't occur with
regularity.

I just know that it appears to be a conflict.

Any ideas??

The drive designation probably isn't the issue. Something is crashing.
Turn OFF automatic restarts, so that you can at least see the error message.
Go to Control Panel, System, Advanced, Startup and Recovery/Settings, and
turn OFF automatic restarts. This won't fix anything but will prevent the
machine from just restarting, and you can use the information to get
further.

HTH
-pk

 

[BarryB]

The drive designation probably isn't the issue. Something is crashing.
Turn OFF automatic restarts, so that you can at least see the error message.
Go to Control Panel, System, Advanced, Startup and Recovery/Settings, and
turn OFF automatic restarts. This won't fix anything but will prevent the
machine from just restarting, and you can use the information to get
further.

HTH
-pk- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Okay, I just turned off "automatic restart". Now, I have to just wait
for it to occur, again.

 

[frodo]

As a general rule, having your "system disk" NOT the C: drive should not
cause a problem at all. But occasionally it does. Some software
(stupidly) assumes C: without checking, and it'll choke (flash player 9.45
was one). But these are just stupid mistakes and only happen once in
awhile.

From the sound of your description I would suspect some sort of malware
for the rebooting issues, you should do a complete scan.

FWIW, my setup is similar to yours, my C: drive is the DVD R/W and my HD's
start at E:. No major problems in many years.

 

[Anna]

The new hard drive was formatted and I simply installed all of my apps
to the new drive. The other is simply used for storing my documents,
photos and etc.

BarryB:
As you suspect, while it's not absolutely mandatory that your boot drive
containing the XP OS be designated the C: drive, it's always a desirable
thing. If it's at all practical at this point in time to, in effect, start
again and fresh install the OS onto that new 80 GB HDD with a drive letter
assignment of C:, I would urge you to do so.

I realize that in doing so all your present programs & user-created data
will, of course, disappear from the drive so that you would have to
reinstall all those programs & data, together with drivers, MS Critical
Updates, etc. Not the most pleasant task to undertake in view of this, but I
really think that in the long run you'll profit from doing so.

Time & time again over the years we've encountered problems with systems
whose system-boot drive had a drive assignment letter other than C:. These
problems involved accessing programs, updating programs & system files,
backing up data. The list goes on & on. It shouldn't have happened, but it
did all too frequently. And time & time again we discovered the basic
problem was merely a non-C:-letter drive assignment for the system/boot
disk. It is true, as "frodo" has pointed out in another post that it *is*
possible for a system to operate properly over the years with a boot drive
with a non-C:-letter drive assignment, but as I have indicated, we have
found too many instances that problems arose because of this.

Now as to the specific problems you mentioned...

It wouldn't appear that the fact that your system/boot HDD has a non-C:
drive letter is the cause of these problems, but who knows as I've indicated
above?

The shutting down & rebooting problem sounds hardware-related, but it might
not be. I assume you've carefully checked your system for malware
infestation. But if it is a hardware-related problem that's an entirely
different subject.
Anna

 

[Guest]

My system is currently using Trend Micro 2006.

Aside from using this, what can I use to do a detailed scan of my system?

 

[Guest]

Since I am probably not the only one who goes through this, it is likely to
prove helpful to describe what I've done to eliminate likely suspect.

I should mention that I use a screen magnification software called ZoomText.
By default, this software disables DirectX 3D overlay. The reason is to
prevent conflicts with other overlay based apps. I wasn't certain if this
was the culprit and so I proceeded to uninstall this app and downloaded the
latest video driver (ATI Radeon 7000). I did not reinstall ZoomText as I
wanted to see if it was the culprit. Nope.

The next step, as you mentioned is to see if it was malware. I am using the
latest virus definition from Trend Micro for their 2006 app. I scanned my
system with both this and HouseCall, Trend's online virus detection system.
The computer checked clean. I'd have used Ad-Aware except it baled at not
finding the C:\ after updating itself.

As for hardware, I had gone into Device Manager to see if there's any
conflicts. There was no complaints and all of my hardware components were
working properly. In fact, I have had the same hardware setup for a couple
of years. The only newbie is the 80GB hard drive.

Someone mentioned disabling the "automatic reboot" feature. The idea is to
see what error message shows up.

 

[Jim]

My system is currently using Trend Micro 2006.

Aside from using this, what can I use to do a detailed scan of my system?

David Lipman's Multi_AV program comes to mind.
No one AV software can catch them all.
Jim

 

[Iceman]

My system is currently using Trend Micro 2006.

Aside from using this, what can I use to do a detailed scan of my system?

Scan for malware from here:
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-gb/default.htm?s_cid=sah
http://onecare.live.com/standard/en-gb/default.htm
Run a scan from here on-line:
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx
Download Avast Cleaner from here:
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast-virus-cleaner.html
Lots of tools to download and disinfect your machine:
http://www.bitdefender.co.uk/site/Downloads/browseFreeRemovalTool/
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5

Download the Hijackthis and send the report to one of many
forums for analysis and troubleshooting:
http://www.merijn.org/index.php
When all else fails, HijackThis v1.99.1
(http://aumha.org/downloads/hijackthis.zip) is the preferred tool to use.
It will help you to both identify and remove any hijackware/spyware. Post
your log to http://aumha.net/viewforum.php?f=30,
http://castlecops.com/forum67.html,
http://forums.subratam.org/index.php?showforum=7, or other appropriate
forums for expert analysis, not here.
Any error message, have a look in the event viewer and post them here.