Multiple Drive letters per partition

[Gabe]

I have two drives 500Gb each - identical
I have multiple partitions on each for future OS's and data areas.
I just noticed that some of the partitions on the second drive have several
letters assigned to them in the left column of my File managers
This system is only about 2 months old.

The primary drive (the one with my daily XP64 in the first partition ) has
only one letter per partition C-D-E and F
My sole DVD player is assigned G

The secondary drive (where there is a test version of XP64 on the primary
partition) has

H and H again - primary partition
F and I - on next partition Shows up as I:\ when selected
G and J - next shows up as J :\ when selected to
display
H and K and K - next shows up as K:\
I and L next shows up as L:\ when selected
M - next
N - next

So there are no conflicts in the access only in the listing of these letters
after the Volume name in the left column.... and the assignments are
operationally sequential
These may have appeared at anytime in recent weeks - I do not use them (I
use M as my sole data partition till now) and so have not paid much
attention until I just decided to begin using a second data partition - and
looked closer at what I had to pick from.
The only clue I have to this behavior -- is just recently I went from
running exclusively from the default Admin Logon - to creating a second
admin account (new name) and when i realized i lost acccess to all my
settings and tweaks in the default I copied as much as i could from the
default Admin folder to the new folder (not sure i got everything that
would copy but most - except items that were "in use" and couldn't be
overwritten) Not sure if this is the cause of this but i would
like to clear this up.

 

[mike]

I have two drives 500Gb each - identical
I have multiple partitions on each for future OS's and data areas.
I just noticed that some of the partitions on the second drive have several
letters assigned to them in the left column of my File managers
This system is only about 2 months old.

The primary drive (the one with my daily XP64 in the first partition ) has
only one letter per partition C-D-E and F
My sole DVD player is assigned G

The secondary drive (where there is a test version of XP64 on the primary
partition) has

H and H again - primary partition
F and I - on next partition Shows up as I:\ when selected
G and J - next shows up as J :\ when selected to
display
H and K and K - next shows up as K:\
I and L next shows up as L:\ when selected
M - next
N - next

So there are no conflicts in the access only in the listing of these letters
after the Volume name in the left column.... and the assignments are
operationally sequential
These may have appeared at anytime in recent weeks - I do not use them (I
use M as my sole data partition till now) and so have not paid much
attention until I just decided to begin using a second data partition - and
looked closer at what I had to pick from.
The only clue I have to this behavior -- is just recently I went from
running exclusively from the default Admin Logon - to creating a second
admin account (new name) and when i realized i lost acccess to all my
settings and tweaks in the default I copied as much as i could from the
default Admin folder to the new folder (not sure i got everything that
would copy but most - except items that were "in use" and couldn't be
overwritten) Not sure if this is the cause of this but i would
like to clear this up.

randomly copying files from one user account to another is not likely
to produce a satisfactory result. Often, the registry needs to know
about such things.

It's possible to share a subdirectory and assign it a letter.

 

[Gabe]

randomly copying files from one user account to another is not likely
to produce a satisfactory result. Often, the registry needs to know
about such things.

It's possible to share a subdirectory and assign it a letter.

Do you know where within the account this housekeeping is done, a file or
registry area that can be editied, to remove the extraneous entries

 

[Uwe Sieber]

Do you know where within the account this housekeeping is done, a file or
registry area that can be editied, to remove the extraneous entries

Start -> Run
enter
regedit

Under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
scroll down to the values like \DosDevices\D:

Delete all these values except the one with the real drive
letter of your Windows drive. Reboot.
Check the drive letters and correct if required in the
Windows disk management.


Uwe

 

[Gabe]

Start -> Run
enter
regedit

Under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
scroll down to the values like \DosDevices\D:

Delete all these values except the one with the real drive
letter of your Windows drive. Reboot.
Check the drive letters and correct if required in the
Windows disk management.


Uwe

I did as you suggested.
After the first reboot i still had:
drive D (Now more properly i think, the 1st partition on the second drive)
with H - D assignments - so what happened here is that the prior double H
assignment for this partition has persisted to some degree
and Partition K also had an extraneous "I" assignment, (not sure what this
was before i began, as the partition sequences are now shuffled)

(more correctly moved the DVD to the end of the list as N)
----
Deleted D thru last item once again and those two still persist.

I have no need for particular assignments - I just moved the swap back to
the partition i wanted it on.
Will have to edit some shortcuts
So I didn't look for the Disk management util

Then i went into the file manager and began to delete the extraneous
assignment from the Volume name and after a few tries got the correct (X
to persist without a second assignment popping back up when I left the edit
mode.

Rebooted - the new partition sequence persisted But i got identical
dual-assignments for D-D E-E F-F H-H I-I J-J K-K L-L
M-M
(it seems to me they are breeding more each time I change back and forth to
the window).
Well at least now its consistent - no mixed assignments.

I then went back to regedit and deleted D thru the end again - rebooted
and I got the same duplicates I just listed with the newer partition-device
sequence


By the way I went back and logged onto the original Admin account (using
Ctrl-Alt Del) with the original folders and files and this anomaly of dual
assignments showed up there as well...so perhaps this predates my creating
the new admin.
I am noticing that the partition sequence for drive C is not quite true to
the actual creation sequence on the drive.

When i went to make a slight change in a volume name and left edit mode a
third (identical) assignment popped up on that item.
Now all items D thru M are doubled.

Better - any other ideas
thanks

 

[Uwe Sieber]

I did as you suggested.
After the first reboot i still had:
drive D (Now more properly i think, the 1st partition on the second drive)
with H - D assignments - so what happened here is that the prior double H
assignment for this partition has persisted to some degree
and Partition K also had an extraneous "I" assignment, (not sure what this
was before i began, as the partition sequences are now shuffled)

(more correctly moved the DVD to the end of the list as N)
----
Deleted D thru last item once again and those two still persist.

I have no need for particular assignments - I just moved the swap back to
the partition i wanted it on.
Will have to edit some shortcuts
So I didn't look for the Disk management util

Then i went into the file manager and began to delete the extraneous
assignment from the Volume name and after a few tries got the correct (X
to persist without a second assignment popping back up when I left the edit
mode.

Rebooted - the new partition sequence persisted But i got identical
dual-assignments for D-D E-E F-F H-H I-I J-J K-K L-L
M-M
(it seems to me they are breeding more each time I change back and forth to
the window).
Well at least now its consistent - no mixed assignments.

I then went back to regedit and deleted D thru the end again - rebooted
and I got the same duplicates I just listed with the newer partition-device
sequence


By the way I went back and logged onto the original Admin account (using
Ctrl-Alt Del) with the original folders and files and this anomaly of dual
assignments showed up there as well...so perhaps this predates my creating
the new admin.
I am noticing that the partition sequence for drive C is not quite true to
the actual creation sequence on the drive.

When i went to make a slight change in a volume name and left edit mode a
third (identical) assignment popped up on that item.
Now all items D thru M are doubled.

Better - any other ideas

No, I'm out of ideas. Never seen such effect persistent...

An XP repair install is what I would try.


Uwe

 

[Gabe]

I'd try going into disk management and unassign all drive letters
but your boot drive of course.

I'd reboot the machine than reassign the drive letters from disk
management...
then re-boot to see if the assignments stay.

Mission accomplished
ControlPanel -> Admin Tools ->Computer management -> Disk management

First I Removed the assignments - but there was still an assignment showing
(the second of the two) so I bought up properties there in "disk
management" and in most cases the second assignment was attached to the
Volume name and I removed it. So those were all cleared.
After I rebooted and went back to disk management those that had a second
assignment that wasn't attached to the volume name now allowed me to remove
the second by straight forward assignment removal. I had to clear my swap
file (partition) to do any changes to that partition - can't remove an
assignment with an active swap file...throw in a couple extra boots for
that.
In the case where there were three assignments...essentially the same
applied - just keep going back until its either removed from the volume name
or you get another chance to remove assignment.

Once they were all cleared (except C and the DVD drive which never had more
than one) I reassigned: with the second drive master as D --- Primary drive
remaining partitions in creation order, then the Secondary Drive in creation
order. (I believe that is how they first appeared when building the system).
This way only C and D should swap places when using second drive as master
by swapping in BIOS. (Building a multiboot will come later).

Thank you -- much appreciated for both suggestions.