"Linea Recta" schreef in bericht
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"Paul" schreef in bericht
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Linea Recta wrote:
"Paul" schreef in bericht
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Linea Recta wrote:
"Paul" schreef in bericht
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Linea Recta wrote:
I removed a broken hard drive (which was Window system drive) from
(some
one's older computer) and built in a working drive.
Configured all in BIOS, OK so far.
Now I partitioned & formatted the "new" drive and installed Windows
XP
(SP3), taking care to choose the swapped drive label as the Windows
partition, not to overwrite the other existent HD.
After installation Windows seems to reside on the D: instead of C:.

What the .....*%%&$ ?!

What mistake can I have made? And how can I fix this situation?
In Disk Management, what comes before it ?

The thing is, you might have manually partitioned the drive,
put multiple partitions, then installed to the second partition,
and that ends up as D:.


No, I made just one partition. The computer had (and has) 2 hard
drives,
both containing only one (default max sized) partition.


I've managed to do that, by doing a "hard drive install", copying
the CD into one partition, and trying to install into another
partition. By accident, I put the partitions in the wrong order
(as seen in the partition table).

So it's a matter of you looking at the available storage
devices, and discovering "what came before" the partition
in question, and solving it before reinstalling. It's possible
to "hide" a partition.


Windows is installed on the right partition (= drive, in my case) I
checked
this, problem is only it now has wrong drive letter. I know in
Windows you
can change drive letters, but not the system drive...


You can review the partitions with this, if you need more
inspiration.
(If you run this in Windows 7, you need to "Run as Administrator" or
you'll get "error 5". Fewer problems expected with WinXP.)

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/englis...s/PTEDIT32.zip


That will show you the partition table, which slots are occupied in
the partition table, and so on.

You can compare and correlate the info from PTEDIT32 to Disk
Management,
and see things you might otherwise miss.



Thanks for your reply. I'll see what I can do with the link. On friday
I
hope to continue working on the mentioned computer locally.

What happens if just the "target" drive is physically connected during
the install. Does it still become "D:" ?

There's got to be an explanation, for the choice of drive letters
during installation.

Drives are detected in "hardware order". A certain order for busses,
and port order for controllers. In theory, you might be able to
predict which drive comes first. It's easier, to just disconnect
unrelated hardware, during the basic install, as a means to get
it to be "c:".

In general, OS installers are not to be trusted. I've had Linux
install the necessary files to "disk1", and then, when it comes
time to install GRUB, install that to "disk0" and wipe my WinXP
MBR boot code. It took the recovery console and "fixmbr" to repair
the damage. As a result of mishaps like that, I generally disconnect
everything but the target hard drive, so the installer has no choice
in the matter.

Another observation. Even the "disable" function for SATA ports in
the BIOS, does not work. You can disable a port in the BIOS, and
an OS/installer can still find the port and turn it on and write
to the disk. (The hardware does not feature "trap-door" style
controls, so a setting in the BIOS can easily be reversed.)
It means, based on seeing this happen, that I have no choice
but to unplug the SATA cable (knowing the connector is only rated
for 50 cycles). An unplugged cable is a good way to prevent
surprises of all sorts.





Look what I found in the meantime:

http://www.petri.co.il/change_system...windows_xp.htm

Think I'll try that first of all comming friday...



It's true. There's a recipe for it.

When that won't work, is after you've installed MS Office. Or
other products that key off the drive letter details. Then, after
you use the petri.co.il suggestion, the applications that key off
the letter, will have a problem. Most "naive" (inexpensive) software
doesn't have a problem. But bigger packages like Office don't like
it. And since you've just installed the system anyway, there's not
likely to be anything on there (yet) that will get upset.

But if you did it six months from now, after reinstalling all apps,
it might be a different story.


Of course, I understand. But this is a new install from scratch. That's
why I want to resolve the drive letter issue before proceeding with
installing of applications.



The same can apply, to the drive letter assigned to the optical drive.
It's best, to change that right after the install, and then leave
it set that way for good. Again, some tools "look" for their original
installer CD, on a particular drive letter. Yes, it can probably
be fixed, one application at a time, in the registry.

Another thing that has a drive letter setting, is System File Checker.
But the odds of that working seamlessly, without screwing with it,
are so low, it hardly counts as an issue. The last time I tested it, I
had to set two registry entries to get it to work.


OK thanks. I'll be back, be it with good or bad news :-)




Today I disconnected the second hard drive temporarily and did a new install
all over (partition, formatted, new install Windows) and all is OK now.



--
regards,

|\ /|
| \/ |@rk
\../
\/os