Weird drive numbering

[mikep56]

Hi All,

I have just built a new system using a BIOSTAR TForce TF7050-M2 AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 7050PV HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard, a 500GB SATA HD, a Silverstone ML01 HTPC case, and my UA Windows XP Pro cd. The ML01 has a 26 in 1 card reader built in.

The UA Windows install went without a hitch. But when I went to the device manager, the HD was h:, and the various readers were c: - g:. Will having the boot drive as h: affect any program operation, and if so, is there any way to re-enumerate the drives so that c: is the HD and the readers come after without having to do an install again? If I need to do an install again, I would think that I would need to do it without the readers connected, then after Windows is loaded, connect the readers and let Windows find them. Does this make sense?

Thanks for any help that i can get.

Mike

[uid0]

I don't think it's possible to change the systemdrive once installed.

But the only programs affected will be the most sloppy ones, should be very few.

You could change the card reader C: to a different letter, then try

subst c: h:\

for any stupid programs.

[mikep56]

Hi uid0,

Yeah, I didn't think that I would have any problems running any SW in this configuration. I just thought for aesthetic reasons I could have the boot device c:. But the 500GB drive takes 2 hours to format, so I guess I'll pass until I come across a program that doesn't like running off of the h: drive.

Thanks again uid0.

Regards,

Mike

[puntoMX]

Next time disconnect the reader until XP is installed, that would be the fastest way.

Why don’t you just quick format the drive? That takes just 1 minute or so .

Any way, moving this topic to the XP forum...

[gosh]

Is your xp cd slipstreamed with sp2? This happened in the RTM version, im surprised this still happens with slipstreamed media.

You can change the system drive, however it's unsupported and about 50% the computer will blue screen.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223188/en-us

-gosh

[Mijzelf]

Having Windows on another drive is just fine. I 've done it that way for years (started with NT4). Windows doesn't have any problems with it. Some programs have problems with it, though. As uid0 mentioned, you can use the SUBST command a a work around. But I wouldn't use

subst C: H:\

but create a subdirectory, and use

subst C: H:\SillyProgramsC

Why give a silly program an easy way to your precious windows directory?

By the way, there's a bug in XP. When you have a substituted C drive, and you put in an USB stick, this will also get the letter C, and will be hidden and unusable until you 'unsubst' C: with the command

subst /D C:

[Ponch]

I vote for reinstall without card reader. This will save you from doing it in a month, once all other configuration has been done.

[mikep56]

Hi All,

To puntoMX,

Yeah, I was thinking that I would do exactly that. No need to wait until some dumb program wants to run off the C:\ only.

To gosh,

Yes, my CD is XP Pro with SP2 slipstreamed.

To Mijzelf,

I use a USB stick quite often, so I will not be using this method, but thanks anyway for the info.

To Ponch,

Yeah, after a quick format, I will disconnect the readers and install Windows XP. Then I will reconnect the readers.

Thanks to all for your responses.

Mike

[stans4]

The MS KB article mentioned gives the necessary hokey-pokey to change the boot drive letter, but leaves out what else is necessary to avoid blue-screening. You have to go through the registry entries and change all the original drive letters to the new drive letter. In this case, changing "H:\" to "C:\". This can amount to several thousand entries, not really practical with Regedit. I ran into this first years back when setting up a dual boot system with 98SE and W2K. I had three FAT32 partitions on the first drive that had 98SE installed in the primary and a second drive that was NTFS. The initial install of W2K made the W2K boot drive letter D:, not F: as I wanted. I wanted the drive letters to be the same on both installs, for various reasons. So I did the registry alterations as per that KB article and ended up with a blue screen. I then figured out that what was needed was to change the W2K registry entries to reflect the new drive lettering scheme. Took forever with Regedit. So I did a search on third-party utilities and ended up with Registry Workshop(www.torchsoft.com). This is shareware, try-before-you-buy. With some judicious selection of search criteria, it takes about 5 minutes to fix up a fresh install. I bought it after that. Made a tedious process a whole lot easier, does a lot of other things, too, besides blanket find and replace. Good for defanging virii, among other things. Anyway, you CAN change a boot drive letter, it's just more involved than what's in the KB article.

A hypothetical order of operations would be:

Disconnect the card reader and uninstall it

Boot into Safe mode

Back up registry, I use ERUNT

Adjust drive letters per the KB article

Use a registry utility to do a blanket replace, new letter for old

Check to see that all instances are replaced and nothing is replaced that shouldn't be

Immediately reboot after that.

Add the card reader back in

On these card readers, I usually disable the ports for the media types I don't use, I've got a number of shares on other machines and don't need the drive letters tied up. YMMV

[jaclaz]

For the record, these are also connected to the topic:

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ic=3007&hl=

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=90495

I have used the Registrar Lite app to do the multiple Search/Replace.

jaclaz

[puntoMX]

I noticed that some laptops have build in card readers that can’t be disabled, this info here could come in handy. Thank you two, stans4m and jaclaz .

[jaclaz]

I noticed that some laptops have build in card readers that can’t be disabled, this info here could come in handy. Thank you two, stans4m and jaclaz .

If I may, these procedures should be taken only (if and) when "the milk is already been spilled" .

For a new installation, I would prefer using a migrate.inf file, some reference:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=19663

jaclaz

[mikep56]

Hi All,

To finally put this subject to bed, this weekend I did a quick reformat of the HD, which took about 20 seconds to perform, and then a reinstallation of XP Pro without the card readers connected. I will reconnect the card readers later this week after I put in a new DVD burner that I bought for this PC. XP Pro is now back onto the C drive, and all is good.

Thanks for all the help from all the contributors of this forum

Regards,

Mike