ever wondered why xp setup changes drive letters?

[XtremeMaC]

hi there

i've just found out why and according to what the xp setup changes the drive letters

now as many of u know there are 2 basic partitions in nfts, primary and logical, right?

now xp gives priority & assigns the drive letters to those primary partitions, after those it gives the drive letters to logicals ones..

many of u might have known it but i've just found it out...

[VitoCorleone]

you can always change the letters if you like in administrative tools

[XtremeMaC]

I frigging know it!

i put my program files to my second partition, so if it gets another drive letter it gets messed up..so i need to do it at setup...

just giving out info that i've recently found out bc it made me so happy...

[neuro42]

I think it also assigns priority to the first parttiion on 2 HDDs

I formatted one one drive C D E and formatted another s and z

On fresh reinstall I ended up with hdd0 C: E F

hdd1 d and g

grrr

[XtremeMaC]

its not about the 1st partition its bc those first partitions are labeled as "primary partition" instead of logical...

[neuro42]

I assign all my partitions as primaries though, I have yet to create extended and following logical partitions

(To create a logical partiton, you have to have 1 primary parttion on the hdd, then create an extended partiton on the rest, then fill the extendd partitions with logical partitions (logical is just a nice way to say virtual)

You can then take the logical partitoins and do things like spanning. (Spanning is taking 2 logical partition on seperate HDDs and joining them so the OS thinks its 1 parttion. It is similar to striping, except that the first parttion must be filled before the second is touched)

[VitoCorleone]

I frigging know it!

i was siur you knew, i wanted help others who wondered how to change that

Spanning is taking 2 logical partition on seperate HDDs and joining them so the OS thinks its 1 parttion.

could you recommend a program for that?

[jaclaz]

Just to clear things up a bit:

Here is how DOS/Win9x/ME assign drive letters:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/ar...es/Q51/9/78.ASP

Here is how NT/W2k/XP/2003 assign drive letters:

http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBA/tip0200/rh0288.htm

http://www.dewassoc.com/support/win2000/driveletters.htm

At boot time ALL NT based Os's give letters as follows

1) C: is given to FIRST ACTIVE PRIMARY partition on FIRST hard disk, if no primary partition is found on first HD, it is given to first active primary partition on 2nd HD, etc.

2) Subsequent letters are given to extended partitions, starting from the FIRST hard disk

3) Once ALL logical partitions have been given a letter, system re-scans for further primary partitions, starting from the FIRST hard disk

BUT there is this problem (remote event, but who knows with XP):

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;en-us;307079

jaclaz

[MHz]

I frigging know it!

i was siur you knew, i wanted help others who wondered how to change that

Spanning is taking 2 logical partition on seperate HDDs and joining them so the OS thinks its 1 parttion.

could you recommend a program for that?

You can span Volumes with Window XP Professional.

There are five types of Dynamic Volumes: Simple, Spanned, Striped, Mirrored, and RAID-5.

Volumes are perferred when you have multiple drives. They are very good.