Drive Allocation Question

[Treeman]

Ok, I'm not going to try and confuse anyone so I'll try to keep on subject:

In my computer I have a combo firewire/usb pci card. The usb portion attaches to a 9 in 1 card reader which have drive assignments of let's say; F through K.

The firewire card is connected to an external FW H. drive as "L"

I was warned that before updating to XP-SP2, I should physically disconnect the pci combo card, along with the card reader, and external drive.

This makes sense because of two facts: 1. The pci card isn't a WHQL certified item. (I'll have to update that) 2. The last time I tried to update to SP2 on this computer I had to reformat the drive back to SP-1 to get it to function again.

My question is this: How nuts will XP get about missing drive assignments when I do this? And if I have a successful SP2 install experience, can I just plug things back in the reverse order I pulled them out and XP will automagically re-asign the drive letters?

Thanks for your thoughts,

Treeman

[LiquidSage]

2. The last time I tried to update to SP2 on this computer I had to reformat the drive back to SP-1 to get it to function again.

If that truly was an issue, you should check w/ whoever made the card reader for driver updates. Realisticlly, that device could be plugged into your comp while sp2 is updating. Though i would disconnect the HD's while it does so.

Drive letter should be reassigned w/o problems unless that letter is taken, in which case the drive letter will change.

You may need to go to disk managment to 'rescan the disks' for it to detect your external hd and/or reinstall the original pci card drivers

[Zxian]

Quick answer, you shouldn't have any problems re-assigning drive letters to your drives after you plug everything back in. If they're out of order, just put one or more of them to a letter that you don't use (like X, Y or Z) and then move the rest around as you need them).

[XtremeMaC]

the driver problem is wierd, do u have sepeate drivers for it or does sp1 recognize it?

2nd, if u're asking if u'll get the drive letters back, u'll most probably will get them right, unless u add/remove hdd's or any other device.

[Treeman]

No seperate drivers, SP1 handled all that and the card worked flawlessly. The drivers in SP2 however are now digitally signed drivers. (I'll have to get a WHQL certified pci card)

What I was mainly concerned about was how the registry would "feel," about me unplugging the card and drives. I say that because I think my computer is female and responds only to emotions, not logic.

Thanks for the tips.

Treeman

[XtremeMaC]

well okay then

grab drivers from sp1 and replace them with sp2's u should be fine then.

[prathapml]

Its a mistaken notion that SP2 is any different in dealing with drivers.

Just merge SP2 into your XP disk, do a clean-install, plugin your whatever you want, install the drivers..... it will work straight away.

The reason it might not have worked for you last time, is that you did an UPGRADE - and its effectively junked 70% of your registry/devices/system files. Do it the correct way as described above, and its all fine.

[Treeman]

prathapml,

Not that I don't appreciate your advice, it's just that I'm tired of re-formatting my drive and all it's data because MS can't get it right.

I'm going to try the upgrade first without the firewire card and drives/reader, then if it screws me again it will be time to slipstream and do a fresh install.

Wish me luck,

Treeman

[svasutin]

Concerning firewire see my reply concerning

Reg Tweaks that negatively affect 1394 devices