Assign Missing Hard Drive Letter in XP Pro

[lup]

Have two identical WD 80gig JBHD and had a problem with XP on my C drive. Switched drives and installed a clean copy of XP Pro which is now on the new C: drive with all my re-loaded software. However my other drive which is in the slave position does not show a drive letter. It shows as a Healthy Active NTFS drive under the disk management along with my C: drive but without a drive letter under the Volume heading. I have done a refresah and everything I can think of. This drive has all my files on it and all I need to do is get them transferred to either my C: drive or my external USB drive in order to transfer them back to the new C: drive...any answers??

Lup

 

[jonlog]

You have two 80 gig drives. You should only have one drive active as your first drive probably has the same drive letters as your second drive does.

What you should be doing is to clone your good drive with all your data onto the second drive. Then use only the second drive and keep your other 80 gig drive as a backup.

A program that can clone one drive to another drive is PowerQuests DriveCopy 4. It is a low cost program at only about $30 and works great.

I use DriveCopy 4 to clone my two 80 gig drives on a regular basis. Then I plug in the drive I just cloned to and use it until I clone HDs again. I clone on a weekly basis that helps you to have a backup drive in case the drive you are using crashes or dies. Then plug in your backup drive and be back computing in a very short time.

I have been using earlier versions of DriveCopy with Win 98, 98 SE, ME. For XP Pro I upgraded to DriveCopy 4 which is the only version that works with 80 gig drives.

Works for me.

 

[BernardStewart]

I have 2 80Gb drives and 4 40GB drives on a raid card. All 3 are set as active. The 2 80gb drives are swappable drives
I use Partition Magic 8 to control or change the drive letters.
The advantage is that you could always partition the drive you have your data on and so the data would be secure.
You can then install XP into the new partition. I have XP on all the three drives referred to above.

 

[linney]

What happens if you just Add a drive letter as per -

Assign, change, or remove a drive letter........Help and Support program article?

 

[BernardStewart]

This might help you:-
About DriveMapper

When you create, delete, hide, and unhide partitions, your drive letters can change, causing applications not to run because application shortcuts, initialization files, and registry entries refer to incorrect drives. DriveMapper is a wizard that lets you easily update drive letter references.
Important: DriveMapper does not change drive letter assignments; it only changes references to the drive letters, which are assigned by your operating system.

You can run DriveMapper from the PartitionMagic main window. DriveMapper also runs automatically if the following conditions are all met:

· You apply changes to your system that affect drive letter assignments

· You are running Windows 95 or Windows 98

· Your hard disk contains only FAT or FAT32 partitions

· You have no more than one CD-ROM drive and no more than one removable drive.

If you are using Windows NT or Windows 2000/XP Professional as your only operating system, we recommend using the Change Drive Letter operation (Operation > Advanced > Change Drive Letter) rather than DriveMapper. Change Drive Letter lets you permanently set the drive letters for your partitions so that adding and removing partitions does not affect drive letters. Note that if you merge or split partitions, drive letters will change even if you are using Windows NT and the Change Drive Letter operation.

If you have installed an alternative desktop on Windows 3.11 or Windows 95 with the desktop files residing on a different drive than the Windows system files, DriveMapper may not be able to adjust your paths. Because DriveMapper is a Windows program, it must have Windows loaded to run. If the drive letter has been changed for the drive that holds your desktop files, you may not be able to start Windows.

Using DriveMapper with Multiple Operating Systems

If you run multiple operating systems, you should reinstall applications rather than use DriveMapper. The following issues make using DriveMapper in a multiple operating system environment difficult and error-prone:

· Drive letter assignments are based on the file systems supported by an operating system. If you do not put all FAT32, and NTFS partitions after all FAT partitions, drive letters will change depending on the operating system currently running, and DriveMapper may be unable to correctly identify which changes should be made.

· Registry settings are changed for the current operating system only. If you manually run DriveMapper from another operating system, references in files will already be changed in the current operating system and further changes will introduce errors in the other operating systems.

· When DriveMapper is running, files contained in hidden partitions are not updated. If you are using multiple primary partitions for different operating systems, only the active primary partition may be visible. Thus, only files in that primary partition will be updated.

Changing Drive Letters in the Correct Order

You must change drive letter in the correct order to avoid destroying original references before they are used to make changes for other drive letters.
For example, assume you have two partitions on your hard disk (a primary partition assigned the drive letter C: and a logical partition assigned D and a CD-ROM drive assigned E:. Suppose you create a logical partition between C: and D:. The drive letter of D: changes to E:, and the drive letter of E: changes to F:; however, references in certain files continue to reflect the old drive letter assignments. Using DriveMapper, you must first change the drive E: references to F: and then change the drive D: references to E:.

When you make a change to your hard disk that adds drive letters, always change the highest affected drive letter first (drive E: in the previous example). Likewise, when you make a change to your hard disk that decreases the number of drive letters, always change the lowest affected drive letter first. Changing them in a different order changes source references needed to modify other drive mappings.