Utility that can force XP to assign a drive letter to a partition?

[Jeff Ingram]

Hello,

Does anyone know of a utility that can force XP to assign a drive letter to
a partition. I've gone all around trying to figure out why it's not doing
it! I've reset the drive cabling to cable select, and reinstalled XP, but
still it's not assigning it a drive letter. It's an NTFS partition
otherwise I'd consider installing Windows 98. I've installed Partition
Magic 8.0 but I coudln't find anything there that would let me assign the
partition a drive letter.

Might anyone know of anything that can do this?

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[Michael Thompson]

Hello,

Does anyone know of a utility that can force XP to assign a drive letter to
a partition. I've gone all around trying to figure out why it's not doing
it! I've reset the drive cabling to cable select, and reinstalled XP, but
still it's not assigning it a drive letter. It's an NTFS partition
otherwise I'd consider installing Windows 98. I've installed Partition
Magic 8.0 but I coudln't find anything there that would let me assign the
partition a drive letter.

Might anyone know of anything that can do this?

Thanks,

Jeff

Right click on My Computer and select Manage.

In there, go to Disk Managment, click on the Partition you want to
change the drive letter of, and right click, in the popup menu Change
Drive Letter and Paths.

That'll do what you want.

 

[Ralph Wade Phillips]

Howdy!

Hello,

Does anyone know of a utility that can force XP to assign a drive letter to
a partition. I've gone all around trying to figure out why it's not doing
it! I've reset the drive cabling to cable select, and reinstalled XP, but
still it's not assigning it a drive letter. It's an NTFS partition
otherwise I'd consider installing Windows 98. I've installed Partition
Magic 8.0 but I coudln't find anything there that would let me assign the
partition a drive letter.

Might anyone know of anything that can do this?

Funny, I've always used Disk Management to do this.

You DID check the drive letter specified in Disk Management? And it
IS formatted, right?

RwP

 

[Quaoar]

Hello,

Does anyone know of a utility that can force XP to assign a drive
letter to a partition. I've gone all around trying to figure out why
it's not doing it! I've reset the drive cabling to cable select, and
reinstalled XP, but still it's not assigning it a drive letter. It's
an NTFS partition otherwise I'd consider installing Windows 98. I've
installed Partition Magic 8.0 but I coudln't find anything there that
would let me assign the partition a drive letter.

Might anyone know of anything that can do this?

Thanks,

Jeff

Administrative Tools / Computer Management / Disk Management: Right
click the partition, select Change Drive Letters and Paths.

Q

 

[Rob Schneider]

Did you try using an ID that has administrator rights?

Also check in Local Security Policy to see if you can set something to
have a non admin user make these sort of changes to drive letters.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Just because you are the only user doesn't mean that the id you are
using has appropriate permissions to make these changes. Try using the
"administrator" id.

The suggested resolution discussed here works. I checked it on my
machine before writing to you. I have no futher ideas since I have no
experience debugging this (it works fine for me) except to say that that
your issue is probably related to permissions.

 

[Jeff Ingram]

Yeah, If I had that option available that would be great, but I don't.
Delete Partition is my only option. Is there something that can restore
the partition if I delete it perhaps?

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[Jeff Ingram]

Yeah, If I had that option available that would be great, but I don't.
Delete Partition is my only option. It even says that partition is
healthy. Is there something that can restore the partition if I delete it
perhaps?

Thanks,

Jeff


"Michael

 

[Jeff Ingram]

Yep, I have admin rights since I'm the only user on this system.

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[Timothy Drouillard]

An alternate way to log in as administrator, is to hit ctl-alt-del twice at
the normal login screen. This will be up the old-fashioned style login
screen.

 

[Jeff Ingram]

Rob,

Where is this "Administrator" ID in XP Home and how would you log in with
it?

The user ID I use is the only user that has ever been created on this
system, especially since I just did it yesterday. I would think that this
would have administrator rights. I can even create other users. In fact I
created another user that had admin priviledges, logged in with that user
and I didn't have any of those options you mentioned in Computer Management.

So, recommend any data recovery tools that can recovery deleted partitions?
Any free ones? (it's worth a shot). I'm thinking the only way I'm going to
be able to get to that partition is to delete it and then see if I can
recover it.

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[Jeff Ingram]

Yep, been there, done that, and even bought the T shirt! Yep, it is most
definately formated and has lots of data on it. And Computer Manangement it
even thinks that it's a healthy partition. The only option I get in
Computer Management is to delete the partition.

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[Len]

Too much cross posting... but anyway, I don't see any information in your
posts about what PM8 had to say about the partition. Although PM8 may not
have to direct ability to assign a drive letter it may show information
about the drive and its status which if corrected would allow the system to
assign a drive letter.

Obviously something is causing the partition not to be seen as a viable
drive. Correcting that is the first issue not arbitrarily trying to assign
a drive letter. And yes the drive may simply be hosed and reformating the
only option but there are other things to look into before reaching that
resolution.

FWIW,
Len

 

[Shaun Marolf]

Went there and logged in as Administrator. Had the same option as before,
Delete Partition was the only option.

BUT, I noticed something that I thought was stranged. On that drive I saw
there were two partitions color coded in the same color blue, Primary
Partition. Isn't there only supposed to be only one Primary Partition on a
drive? And if that's true then how the heck did I end up with two Primary
partitions?

Actually you can have more than one primary partition but Windows doesn't
setup that way. Linux can however and so does BSD and other Unix systems.

However being that it is unlikely that you installed Linux or a Unix on your
system It is most likely that the partition was created by someone or
something else. Partition Magic will allow you to change the partion type and
or reformat the partition if need be and there are utilities that will allow
to get the data from that partiton if need be.

--Shaun

 

[Jeff Ingram]

NTFS created with XP.

Thanks,

Jeff

Might I ask how the partition was created, an ntfs partition created with
Win2000 is a different *version* to an ntfs partition created with XP.

 

[Jeff Ingram]

Been there, don't get that option. Only option is Delete Partition when I
right click on it.

Thanks,

Jeff