Missing Drive Letters after Partitioning

[Dick Harper]

IBM ThinkPad R40, Win XP Pro, 16 GB hard drive, DVD-CD/RW.
The TP came with the hard drive configured with a single 16GB
primary partition (C and the DVD (D. My dad wanted a couple of
additional partitions so I used Partition Magic 8.0 to resize C:,
create an extended partition, and add D: F: and G:. We renamed the
DVD as E: We also experimented with splitting the logical G: into
G: and H: and with naming the DVD J:
My Computer and Windows Explorer can't see any drives
identified as G: or higher although it displays C:, D:, E:, and F:
with no problem.
All the partitions are "healthy." Computer Management sees
them all. Clicking "Explore" in Disk Management opens a Windows
Explorer window that displays G: with no problem. They also
display with no problem in the DOS-like Command Prompt window.
I followed (e-mail address removed)'s advice to delete the values under
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices] (I did not delete the
MountedDevices1 values) and rebooted. XP did rediscover all the
partitions. It assigned D: E: anf F: to the logical partitions and
moved the DVD to G: The DVD is now not visible.
Help?

--Dick

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

IBM ThinkPad R40, Win XP Pro, 16 GB hard drive, DVD-CD/RW.
The TP came with the hard drive configured with a single 16GB
primary partition (C and the DVD (D. My dad wanted a couple of
additional partitions so I used Partition Magic 8.0 to resize C:,
create an extended partition, and add D: F: and G:. We renamed the
DVD as E: We also experimented with splitting the logical G: into
G: and H: and with naming the DVD J:
My Computer and Windows Explorer can't see any drives
identified as G: or higher although it displays C:, D:, E:, and F:
with no problem.
All the partitions are "healthy." Computer Management sees
them all. Clicking "Explore" in Disk Management opens a Windows
Explorer window that displays G: with no problem. They also
display with no problem in the DOS-like Command Prompt window.
I followed (e-mail address removed)'s advice to delete the values under
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices] (I did not delete the
MountedDevices1 values) and rebooted. XP did rediscover all the
partitions. It assigned D: E: anf F: to the logical partitions and
moved the DVD to G: The DVD is now not visible.

Download tweakuiXP from the MS powertoys website, and un-hide the 'G'
drive letter, if it has somehow gotten itself hidden?

 

[Dick Harper]

GSV Three Minds in a Can eloquently commented in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general

Dick Harper said

Download tweakuiXP from the MS powertoys website, and un-hide the 'G'
drive letter, if it has somehow gotten itself hidden?

G: (and all the higher letters) don't seem to be hidden. The
command prompt shows them as does Computer Management.
They are simply not accessible from My Computer, Windows
Explorer and from programs that use the Explorer interface.

--Dick

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

GSV Three Minds in a Can eloquently commented in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general


G: (and all the higher letters) don't seem to be hidden. The
command prompt shows them as does Computer Management.
They are simply not accessible from My Computer, Windows
Explorer and from programs that use the Explorer interface.

That's =exactly= the effect that hiding the drive letter with tweakuiXP
(or an equivalent registry change) has.

 

[Alex Nichol]

The TP came with the hard drive configured with a single 16GB
primary partition (C and the DVD (D. My dad wanted a couple of
additional partitions so I used Partition Magic 8.0 to resize C:,
create an extended partition, and add D: F: and G:. We renamed the
DVD as E: We also experimented with splitting the logical G: into
G: and H: and with naming the DVD J:
My Computer and Windows Explorer can't see any drives
identified as G: or higher although it displays C:, D:, E:, and F:
with no problem.

Use TweakUI - one of the XP Powertoys from (if you have installed XP
SP1)
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

If you have not installed SP!, the earlier version can be found at
http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP/EN-US/TweakUiPowertoySetup.exe

Once installed you will find it in Start - All Programs - Powertoys for
Windows XP

In its My Computer - Drives, ensure that all relevant letters are
checked

 

[Alex Nichol]

That worked perfectly. Thanks.
Now I'd love to know how and why XP "unchecked" those drive
letters in the Registry.

My guess would be that IBM set it up that way. A normal XP install
doesn't. But glad its cured