Lost Drive Letters

[Tom]

Hello,

I am looking for help with the following problem:

I have a WinXP-Pro SP1 system with a 30 GB C: drive. I am in the
process of installing a WD External USB 120 GB hard drive. It seemed
to be working fine, but then I lost the drive letters in Disk
Management. I was in the process of exploring the idea of whether to
convert the new drive to the NTFS file system, when I noticed that the
Volume labels for the C: drive and the new F: drive were missing.

If I bring up Windows Explorer, the C: drive is there and is labelled
properly, and so is the new F: drive. I was able to copy files over
from the C: drive to the F: drive, so they seem to be working ok.
However, I am concerned that something might be wrong, since the system
doesn't want to show these Volume labels in Disk Management.

I tried the "refresh" and "rescan disks" commands in Disk Management,
but that didn't help. I also tried the "change drive letters and
paths" fix, but that wouldn't work because the drive letters available
for me to select were all higher than the "C" or "F" I was looking for.


I bought the external hd so that I could back up my C: drive. I am
concerned that if there is something wrong, the backup process might be
compromised.

Any advice, please?

Thanks!

Tom.

 

[Anna]

Hello,

I am looking for help with the following problem:

I have a WinXP-Pro SP1 system with a 30 GB C: drive. I am in the
process of installing a WD External USB 120 GB hard drive. It seemed
to be working fine, but then I lost the drive letters in Disk
Management. I was in the process of exploring the idea of whether to
convert the new drive to the NTFS file system, when I noticed that the
Volume labels for the C: drive and the new F: drive were missing.

If I bring up Windows Explorer, the C: drive is there and is labelled
properly, and so is the new F: drive. I was able to copy files over
from the C: drive to the F: drive, so they seem to be working ok.
However, I am concerned that something might be wrong, since the system
doesn't want to show these Volume labels in Disk Management.

I tried the "refresh" and "rescan disks" commands in Disk Management,
but that didn't help. I also tried the "change drive letters and
paths" fix, but that wouldn't work because the drive letters available
for me to select were all higher than the "C" or "F" I was looking for.


I bought the external hd so that I could back up my C: drive. I am
concerned that if there is something wrong, the backup process might be
compromised.

Any advice, please?

Thanks!

Tom.

Tom:
Assuming both drives are properly functioning as you indicate...

Check the options under the View menu item in Disk Management and tinker
around a bit.
Anna

 

[Tom]

Thank you, Anna,

I appreciate your response. I tried what you said, even though I had
tried that earlier, to no avail. The specific view I am having a
problem with is the top-right pane "volume list." This was the default
view when I first opened the Disk Manager up. Under the first heading,
"Volume," the C Drive shows up as a drive icon with no other
identification, while the new USB drive shows up as a drive icon
followed by "WD USB 2" but with no drive letter.

I should add that I have tried, multiple times, soft rebooting as well
as cold rebooting, with no luck.

Thanks again for your response.

Tom.

 

[Tom]

Well, it looks like I may have more of a problem than I thought!

I just tried to copy a bunch of JPEG files over to the new external
drive, and ran into trouble. After a few files were copied over, the
computer stopped and said it couldn't find the file. I then set up a
new folder in my C drive and successfully copied these JPEG's over, so
the problem seems to be somehow related to the new external drive.

Tom.