How Do I Reset Drives To Default?

[jim evans]

There's probably an obvious answer to this, but it doesn't come to
mind.

A while back I rearranged the drive letters on all my drives except
C:. Now I would like to put them back to the way they would be as
default. How do I reset them to the default?

jim

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

1. Open XP's "Help and Support Center".
2. In the Search box type in: DRIVE LETTERS , and hit ent­er.
3. Click on the task titled: "Assign, change, or remove a ­drive letter".

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect Your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.aspx

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| There's probably an obvious answer to this, but it doesn't come to
| mind.
|
| A while back I rearranged the drive letters on all my drives except
| C:. Now I would like to put them back to the way they would be as
| default. How do I reset them to the default?
|
| jim

 

[jim evans]

1. Open XP's "Help and Support Center".
2. In the Search box type in: DRIVE LETTERS , and hit ent­er.
3. Click on the task titled: "Assign, change, or remove a ­drive letter".

Could you be more specific? That reference explains how to assign
drive letter at will. I know how to do that. That's how I changed
made all the drive letters non-standard. Now I want to know how to
set them back to default. I tried removing the letters entirely
thinking that might cause them to return to the default on the next
boot. It doesn't. Amazingly it hides the drives completely. They
quit appearing in My Computer.

jim

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

There is no default setting for drive letter assignments
in Windows XP. Once you change the drive letter manually,
you'll have to change it back manually.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect Your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.aspx

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| Could you be more specific? That reference explains how to assign
| drive letter at will. I know how to do that. That's how I changed
| made all the drive letters non-standard. Now I want to know how to
| set them back to default. I tried removing the letters entirely
| thinking that might cause them to return to the default on the next
| boot. It doesn't. Amazingly it hides the drives completely. They
| quit appearing in My Computer.
|
| jim

 

[Mikhail Zhilin]

Simply define the letters yourself ("Change Driver Letter and Paths") as
they were before. Windows can't do that itself: there is no generic
information what these letters have to be, and the original assignment
depends on the conditions while you installed Windows; the usual one is
described in
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;825668
--
Mikhail Zhilin
http://www.aha.ru/~mwz
Sorry, no technical support by e-mail.
Please reply to the newsgroups only.
======

 

[jim evans]

There is no default setting for drive letter assignments
in Windows XP. Once you change the drive letter manually,
you'll have to change it back manually.

There's no natural order? The first time I booted after installing XP
the drive letter were randomly assigned? Clearly drive 0 became Drive
C: or there would have been real problems. Are you saying drive 1
doesn't necessarily become Drive D: -- that drive 1 could have been
randomly assigned the letter H: by XP on first boot?

I find this difficult to believe, but if you are certain this is so I
will change my strategy.

jim

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Let's assume you have two hard drives installed.
When you first install Windows XP, the drive
letter assignments should be:

A: Floppy Drive
C: Primary Hard Drive
D: CD or DVD Drive
E: Secondary or Slave Drive.

You can make D: or E: driver letter re-assignments,
or change them, using Disk Management. Once you
make a change, the registry is also changed so any
files or programs may or make not work or launch after
the change. This is known as a "broken shortcut".
It is not a prudent idea to make a drive letter change once
programs or files are installed on a particular drive
or partition. When you make a drive letter change,
it only changes the actual drive letter and does not reassign
files or programs to the new drive letter.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect Your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.aspx

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

:
|
| There's no natural order? The first time I booted after installing XP
| the drive letter were randomly assigned? Clearly drive 0 became Drive
| C: or there would have been real problems. Are you saying drive 1
| doesn't necessarily become Drive D: -- that drive 1 could have been
| randomly assigned the letter H: by XP on first boot?
|
| I find this difficult to believe, but if you are certain this is so I
| will change my strategy.
|
| jim

 

[jim evans]

Simply define the letters yourself ("Change Driver Letter and Paths") as
they were before. Windows can't do that itself: there is no generic
information what these letters have to be, and the original assignment
depends on the conditions while you installed Windows; the usual one is
described in
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;825668

Thanks for your reply. Apparently the answer is, XP doesn't have a
"Return to Default" feature that would go to the drive lettering
arrangement as though you were installing XP for the first time. That
was my question.

I have 10 drives. I thought I understood the natural order A: through
D: (though now I'm not sure a natural order exists in XP). After that
I guess I'll have to study the article you referenced.

Thanks again.

jim

 

[Mikhail Zhilin]

Not sure (probably someone of MVPs will correct me, or concur with me),
but it seems System Restore will help -- if to restore the system state
to the date prior you re-assigned the drive letters.

But even if yes -- then you'll be need to reinstall all the programs you
installed since then.
--
Mikhail Zhilin
http://www.aha.ru/~mwz
Sorry, no technical support by e-mail.
Please reply to the newsgroups only.
======

 

[jim evans]

There's probably an obvious answer to this, but it doesn't come to
mind.

A while back I rearranged the drive letters on all my drives except
C:. Now I would like to put them back to the way they would be as
default. How do I reset them to the default?

To anyone who's interested, the answer is:

Go to the registry entry: HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
Delete all \Dosdevices\X: except C:.

Reboot and it's done.

jim

 

[Mikhail Zhilin]

Yes, it is interesting.
Thank you, Jim, for posting the solution.
--
Mikhail Zhilin
http://www.aha.ru/~mwz
Sorry, no technical support by e-mail.
Please reply to the newsgroups only.
======

 

[Michael Stevens]

In

To anyone who's interested, the answer is:

Go to the registry entry: HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
Delete all \Dosdevices\X: except C:.

Reboot and it's done.

jim

Thanks for the info Jim, I suspect this would not be a good thing to do if
you have installed application on the drives other than C.
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm

 

[Alex Nichol]

A while back I rearranged the drive letters on all my drives except
C:. Now I would like to put them back to the way they would be as
default. How do I reset them to the default?

There is no specific default (except the C); but you can adjust to what
you want at Control Panel - Admin Tools - Computer Management, select
Disk Management and look lower right for the graphic of the drives.
R-click and Change drive letter