Windows 2000 experts please enter....

I'm doing some upgrades on a machine and have run into some thing odd. The drive lettering scheme is all fubared.

Originally the machine had one (Western Digital) hard drive on the primary IDE. On the secondary IDE chain there was a CD-ROM and a Zip 250.

I took the machine and put a brand new Maxtor hdd as the master and the old Western Digital as the slave on the primary IDE channel.

On the secondary IDE channel I put a new CD-RW, and the old ZIP 250, in that order.

So here's what appears in the post now:

Primary Master: Maxtor (new drive) XXXX-XXX
Primary Slave: Western Digital (old drive) XXXX-XXX

Secondary Master: Sony CD-RW XXXX
Secondary Slave: ZIP 250

So what's wrong you ask. Well yeah, it looks fine here, but in Windows:

C:=Western Digital (the old drive, which should be D: or higher)
D:=ZIP 250 (I suspect this is part of my problem, but the client "has to have it")
E:=CD-RW
F:=Maxtor (this is the new drive. Supposed to be the C: drive, but 2000 treats it as such)


This normally would not be a problem. Everything works fine in this setup, and all new program installs by default install in the "F:" drive now. However, I know this customer, and any deviation from her bubble of norm is going to cause cataclysmic mayhem.

 

[Bulk Beef]

Do a clean install with just the primary drive and CD - the zip will screw things up. Just hook that stuff up after you're done.

 

[Ichinisan]

Control Panel> Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Disk Management.

You can change drive letter assignements from there, but I don't think you can change your boot drive unless you Slave it in another system temporarily.

The problem is that Windows will check the partition labels of secondary drives before assigning a letter to the drive that it formats during the install. You could disconnect those drives, format the main drive as C:, then re-install Windows and connect the other drives. I installed Windows on an "F:" partition once and it caused NOTHING BUT TROUBLE. Don't put up with it.

 

[MontysNotebook]

Diddo.

Windows labels the disks so it knows what disk is what. Reinstalling Win2k SHOULD solve your problem.

If you don't like this solution, you can try taking out your old HDD... I take it Win2k is on there? Then you gotta reinstall Windows! Sorry that this was the only solution I can give you.

 

[Kappo]

Yes, take out the WD harddrive. Install windows on the new drive. Then install the WD harddrive. Your old HD will be pushed back to whatever Windows feels like at the time OTHER than C:. You may be able to get away with just removing the old harddrive, but mine made me reinstall. And if it were me, I would stick the zip on the same drive as the primary HD and then the CD rom as the secondary slave, and the WD as the secondary master. Just my opinion, though.

 

[NicColt]

> Yes, take out the WD harddrive. Install windows on the new drive.
> Then install the WD harddrive.
> Your old HD will be pushed back to whatever Windows feels like at the time OTHER than C:.

yeap, exactly what I did last week.