B
Bruce Hight
I hope someone can tell me what's going on here and what, if anything, I
should do about it.
The problem: My hard drive letter assignments don't make sense in re Windows
XP. (This probably stems from a crash I had last summer; a repair shop got
my machine up and running again, but couldn't explain just how. More on that
in a minute)
Here's what I mean:
I have two hard drives, one PATA, one SATA. Both are Seagates and (so far as
I know) have given me no trouble. Here is how they are now set up, at least
when I use them on a daily basis:
SATA drive (four partitions, 160 gigs):
C: -- Boot drive, with Windows XP Home (SP2), and my various programs.
L: -- Nothing much.
M: -- Nothing much.
N: -- Nothing much; some backup files.
PATA (two partitions, 60 gigs):
D: My Documents (Yes, I've got it on a separate hard drive from XP.)
O: This is weird: It used to be my C partition before last year's crash, and
XP
and program files are still there. I've left it alone.
Now, here's the weird part: When I try to run the repair option on the
Windows Recovery Console, it comes up offering me a D prompt! As in, D:\
Why would it do that? C: is the drive I boot from, according to Windows. O
has the old Windows
stuff. But WRC sees only D:.
Now: Last summer, before the crash and "professional" repair: What is now
the O drive was the C drive; I booted from it. I used the SATA drive for
some backup and had intended eventually to switch over to it for my boot
drive. But when I got it back from the repair guy, I found things changed to
their current state, and the repair guy couldn't explain how he ended up
with Windows
installed on the SATA drive and had it made the C: drive. (And he apparently
found a pretty old restore point, because it wasn't as up to date as the
version that had crashed.)
You're probably confused as all get out by now, and I know I am. At the time
of the repair, I was so happy to get most of my stuff back I didn't worry
much about the odd arrangement of drive letters, etc. But this unfinished
business bothers me, and I'm concerned that
if I had another problem, it might be impossible to run WRC thanks to this
weird business of coming up on the D drive.
Here's some more weirdness (to me, anyway):
In Windows XP, Computer Management/Disc Management lists the PATA drive (D/O
partitions) as Disc 0 and lists both partitions. It lists the SATA drive
(C/L/M/N partitions) as Disc 1 and all four partitions. It seems to be the
same in the Bios settings, because if I include Disc 0 in the boot-up
routine, my computer will boot up into Windows. But if I don't, if I just
list Disc 1, it will not. YET -- CM/DM clearly labels the C drive as the
Boot drive. It labels the D drive as the System drive. And it says that all
partitions are "healthy."
What's the difference between a boot drive and a systerm drive?
Maybe the only thing to do is a complete reinstall of just everything, but I
sure hate to do that if I can avoid it -- and fearful, because I'm not sure
what I might accidentally kill.
Any suggestions? Is there some test or repair command I should try, or just
leave well enough alone?
And if you're still reading this, thanks for your patience.
should do about it.
The problem: My hard drive letter assignments don't make sense in re Windows
XP. (This probably stems from a crash I had last summer; a repair shop got
my machine up and running again, but couldn't explain just how. More on that
in a minute)
Here's what I mean:
I have two hard drives, one PATA, one SATA. Both are Seagates and (so far as
I know) have given me no trouble. Here is how they are now set up, at least
when I use them on a daily basis:
SATA drive (four partitions, 160 gigs):
C: -- Boot drive, with Windows XP Home (SP2), and my various programs.
L: -- Nothing much.
M: -- Nothing much.
N: -- Nothing much; some backup files.
PATA (two partitions, 60 gigs):
D: My Documents (Yes, I've got it on a separate hard drive from XP.)
O: This is weird: It used to be my C partition before last year's crash, and
XP
and program files are still there. I've left it alone.
Now, here's the weird part: When I try to run the repair option on the
Windows Recovery Console, it comes up offering me a D prompt! As in, D:\
Why would it do that? C: is the drive I boot from, according to Windows. O
has the old Windows
stuff. But WRC sees only D:.
Now: Last summer, before the crash and "professional" repair: What is now
the O drive was the C drive; I booted from it. I used the SATA drive for
some backup and had intended eventually to switch over to it for my boot
drive. But when I got it back from the repair guy, I found things changed to
their current state, and the repair guy couldn't explain how he ended up
with Windows
installed on the SATA drive and had it made the C: drive. (And he apparently
found a pretty old restore point, because it wasn't as up to date as the
version that had crashed.)
You're probably confused as all get out by now, and I know I am. At the time
of the repair, I was so happy to get most of my stuff back I didn't worry
much about the odd arrangement of drive letters, etc. But this unfinished
business bothers me, and I'm concerned that
if I had another problem, it might be impossible to run WRC thanks to this
weird business of coming up on the D drive.
Here's some more weirdness (to me, anyway):
In Windows XP, Computer Management/Disc Management lists the PATA drive (D/O
partitions) as Disc 0 and lists both partitions. It lists the SATA drive
(C/L/M/N partitions) as Disc 1 and all four partitions. It seems to be the
same in the Bios settings, because if I include Disc 0 in the boot-up
routine, my computer will boot up into Windows. But if I don't, if I just
list Disc 1, it will not. YET -- CM/DM clearly labels the C drive as the
Boot drive. It labels the D drive as the System drive. And it says that all
partitions are "healthy."
What's the difference between a boot drive and a systerm drive?
Maybe the only thing to do is a complete reinstall of just everything, but I
sure hate to do that if I can avoid it -- and fearful, because I'm not sure
what I might accidentally kill.
Any suggestions? Is there some test or repair command I should try, or just
leave well enough alone?
And if you're still reading this, thanks for your patience.
iskPart