One drive shows up with two drive letters

P

philb

I have one serial drive in my system as C:. I have a second drive on
the first IDE port that dhows up as D:. I have a CR and DVD both on
the second IDE port that show up as E: and F:. So far so good.

I decided to add a third hard drive. I put it in as the slave on the
first IDE port (set the existing to master). The BIOS see it just
fine.

Initially, once Windows saw it, it was called G: I was able to set it
up and start using it just fine.

But something changed - i don't know what. Now, it gets seen as both
G: and H:. When the box boots, it tries to run chkdsk on both. (i can
either esc it out or let it go, no matter).

When XP then gets going and i open Explorer, I see both drives. If you
paste a file onto one, it will show up on the other. if you delete
from one, it deletes on the other. I have tried changing the drive
letter to say Z:, which it let's me do, but it still shows and uses
both.

I first thought this wa the weirdest thing and assumed it was just a
unique XP glitch of some sort. But then i did the same thing on
another similar (but different) box, and it works the same way now - i
get the one new 200GB drive to show up as two letters.

If you just ignor the second assignment, everything seems fine (except
for the chkdsk at boot), but it makes me nervous.

If i pull power off the drive (or disable in BIOS), then when XP comes
up both letters are unused as you'd expect. Plug it back in, both
letters come back.

Looking for suggestions or ideas - anyone else ever seen this? Does
anyone run XP with 3 HDs?
TIA
philb.
 
G

Gerry Cornell

What operating system or systems are present?

Any removable disks or storage?

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
P

philb

XP only. a USB port thumbdrive gets popped in & out as needed. Has no
effect either way.
Pretty much as simple as it gets; just a plain old XP on a plain old
Dell box. Nothing the slightest funny until the third drive showed up
as two drive letters....
 
G

Gerry Cornell

Phil

What drive letter is allocated to the thumbdrive?


--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
U

Uwe Sieber

You can change the drive letter assignments in the Windows
Disk Management (Start -> Run -> diskmgmt.msc).

Two letters per volume is very unusual. In case the
Disk Management cannot handle this, you can use the
commandline mountvol:
mountvol X: /D
would delete drive letter X: permanentely.


Uwe
 
P

philb

Uwe,
Your delete suggestion half-way worked. By deleting the second
instance, after a reboot it does not show up in the Explorer tree. But
it still somehow sees it twice.
During boot it now said it needed to chkdsk on G: and then said it
needed to do it on volume {xxxx} (a registry-type kex key). [whereas
before it just said H:) So the good news is i don't see it, but the bad
news is XP still internally believes there are two, and having no label
just refers to it by some key. weird.
 
U

Uwe Sieber

Could you send me or post here the output of my tool
ListUsbDrives?
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/files/listusbdrives.zip

The archive includes the ListAllDrives_To_Notepad.cmd
which redirects the output a text file and opens it
in Notepad.


Uwe


Uwe,
Your delete suggestion half-way worked. By deleting the second
instance, after a reboot it does not show up in the Explorer tree. But
it still somehow sees it twice.
During boot it now said it needed to chkdsk on G: and then said it
needed to do it on volume {xxxx} (a registry-type kex key). [whereas
before it just said H:) So the good news is i don't see it, but the bad
news is XP still internally believes there are two, and having no label
just refers to it by some key. weird.


Uwe said:
You can change the drive letter assignments in the Windows
Disk Management (Start -> Run -> diskmgmt.msc).

Two letters per volume is very unusual. In case the
Disk Management cannot handle this, you can use the
commandline mountvol:
mountvol X: /D
would delete drive letter X: permanentely.


Uwe
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
P

philb

From my system here at work with has same problem. Note the two
entries for BigDrive
which on this box is D: (and sometime F: too!)

ListUsbDrives V1.6
Lists attached USB drives and their USB port names for USBDLM
and FireWire drives and CardReaders
Freeware by Uwe Sieber - www.uwe-sieber.de

show all drives

MountPoint = C:\
Disk Name = ---
Size = no media
Volume Name = \\?\Volume{ce6e0d2d-d0aa-11da-b101-806d6172696f}\
NoMediaNoLetter = no
Drive Type = fixed drive
Bus Type = ATA
HotPlug = no
Volume DevicePath =
\\?\storage#partition#s9c879c87_o7e00_l2542978200#{53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}\
Disk DevicePath =
\\?\ide#disksamsung_hd160jj_________________________wu100-33#30534838314a594d314136303937202020202020#{53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}\
Drive DevID =
IDE\DISKSAMSUNG_HD160JJ_________________________WU100-33\30534838314A594D314136303937202020202020
Ctrl DevID = PCIIDE\IDECHANNEL\4&3C9D63B&0&0
Ctrl2 DevID =
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27C0&SUBSYS_3010103C&REV_01\3&B1BFB68&0&FA
Volume DevName = \Device\Harddisk1\DP(1)0x7e00-0x2542978200+3
Disk DevName = \Device\Ide\IdeDeviceP2T0L0-17
Device Number = 1
Friendly Name = SAMSUNG HD160JJ

MountPoint = D:\
Disk Name = BigDrive
Size = 137.4 GB (NTFS)
Volume Name = \\?\Volume{ec9ef9d9-cbf2-490f-9a89-f3917997fb68}\
NoMediaNoLetter = no
Drive Type = fixed drive
Bus Type = Unknown
HotPlug = no
Volume DevicePath =
\\?\storage#volume#1&3735c57b&0&ldm#{ec9ef9d9-cbf2-490f-9a89-f3917997fb68}#{53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}\
Disk DevicePath =
Drive DevID =
Ctrl DevID =
Ctrl2 DevID =
Volume DevName = \Device\HarddiskDmVolumes\Pburtis2000-3Dg0\Volume1
Disk DevName =
Device Number = -1
Friendly Name =

MountPoint = E:\
Disk Name = ---
Size = no media
Volume Name = \\?\Volume{aeb9d8b4-9cb4-11da-ac86-806d6172696f}\
NoMediaNoLetter = no
Drive Type = CD-ROM
Bus Type = ATAPI
HotPlug = no
Volume DevicePath =
\\?\ide#cdromhl-dt-st_dvdrrw_gwa-4166b_______________1.03____#5&2dcfc45b&0&0.1.0#{53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}\
Disk DevicePath =
\\?\ide#cdromhl-dt-st_dvdrrw_gwa-4166b_______________1.03____#5&2dcfc45b&0&0.1.0#{53f56308-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}\
Drive DevID =
IDE\CDROMHL-DT-ST_DVDRRW_GWA-4166B_______________1.03____\5&2DCFC45B&0&0.1.0
Ctrl DevID = PCIIDE\IDECHANNEL\4&1CFFF364&0&0
Ctrl2 DevID =
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27DF&SUBSYS_3010103C&REV_01\3&B1BFB68&0&F9
Volume DevName = \Device\CdRom0
Disk DevName = \Device\Ide\IdeDeviceP0T1L0-c
Device Number = 0
Friendly Name = HL-DT-ST DVDRRW GWA-4166B

MountPoint = none
Disk Name = BigDrive
Size = no media
Volume Name = \\?\Volume{ce6e0d2c-d0aa-11da-b101-806d6172696f}\
NoMediaNoLetter = no
Drive Type = fixed drive
Bus Type = ATA
HotPlug = no
Volume DevicePath =
\\?\storage#partition#s4c2485d0_o7e00_l2e93bb0400#{53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}\
Disk DevicePath =
\\?\ide#diskst3200822a______________________________3.01____#5&2dcfc45b&0&0.0.0#{53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}\
Drive DevID =
IDE\DISKST3200822A______________________________3.01____\5&2DCFC45B&0&0.0.0
Ctrl DevID = PCIIDE\IDECHANNEL\4&1CFFF364&0&0
Ctrl2 DevID =
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27DF&SUBSYS_3010103C&REV_01\3&B1BFB68&0&F9
Volume DevName = \Device\Harddisk0\DP(1)0x7e00-0x2e93bb0400+2
Disk DevName = \Device\Ide\IdeDeviceP0T0L0-4
Device Number = 0
Friendly Name = ST3200822A



Uwe said:
Could you send me or post here the output of my tool
ListUsbDrives?
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/files/listusbdrives.zip

The archive includes the ListAllDrives_To_Notepad.cmd
which redirects the output a text file and opens it
in Notepad.


Uwe


Uwe,
Your delete suggestion half-way worked. By deleting the second
instance, after a reboot it does not show up in the Explorer tree. But
it still somehow sees it twice.
During boot it now said it needed to chkdsk on G: and then said it
needed to do it on volume {xxxx} (a registry-type kex key). [whereas
before it just said H:) So the good news is i don't see it, but the bad
news is XP still internally believes there are two, and having no label
just refers to it by some key. weird.


Uwe said:
You can change the drive letter assignments in the Windows
Disk Management (Start -> Run -> diskmgmt.msc).

Two letters per volume is very unusual. In case the
Disk Management cannot handle this, you can use the
commandline mountvol:
mountvol X: /D
would delete drive letter X: permanentely.


Uwe



philb wrote:
I have one serial drive in my system as C:. I have a second drive on
the first IDE port that dhows up as D:. I have a CR and DVD both on
the second IDE port that show up as E: and F:. So far so good.

I decided to add a third hard drive. I put it in as the slave on the
first IDE port (set the existing to master). The BIOS see it just
fine.

Initially, once Windows saw it, it was called G: I was able to set it
up and start using it just fine.

But something changed - i don't know what. Now, it gets seen as both
G: and H:. When the box boots, it tries to run chkdsk on both. (i can
either esc it out or let it go, no matter).

When XP then gets going and i open Explorer, I see both drives. If you
paste a file onto one, it will show up on the other. if you delete
from one, it deletes on the other. I have tried changing the drive
letter to say Z:, which it let's me do, but it still shows and uses
both.

I first thought this wa the weirdest thing and assumed it was just a
unique XP glitch of some sort. But then i did the same thing on
another similar (but different) box, and it works the same way now - i
get the one new 200GB drive to show up as two letters.

If you just ignor the second assignment, everything seems fine (except
for the chkdsk at boot), but it makes me nervous.

If i pull power off the drive (or disable in BIOS), then when XP comes
up both letters are unused as you'd expect. Plug it back in, both
letters come back.

Looking for suggestions or ideas - anyone else ever seen this? Does
anyone run XP with 3 HDs?
TIA
philb.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
U

Uwe Sieber

philb said:
entries for BigDrive
which on this box is D: (and sometime F: too!)

ListUsbDrives V1.6
Lists attached USB drives and their USB port names for USBDLM
and FireWire drives and CardReaders
Freeware by Uwe Sieber - www.uwe-sieber.de
Click to expand...

That's really strange. BIGDRIVE appears with two logical volumes,
some information are returned for the one, some for the other.
Never seen this before.

Seems to me like an broken dynamic disk. Have you played
with dynamic disks?

I don't know where information about dynamic disks are stored
in the registry. I would try to rename under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM
'MountedDevices' to something else and reboot. Create an image
of the system partition before...


Uwe
 

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