Partitioning

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Just received an Inspiron 5150 with 40GB HD (C and DVD/CD-RW combo
drive (D. Partitioned the C: drive using Partition Magic 8.0 and
wound up with the new partition as E:. How do I get the combo drive
to be E: and the new partition to be D:? Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

sar130@columbia.edu wrote:
>
> Just received an Inspiron 5150 with 40GB HD (C and DVD/CD-RW combo
> drive (D. Partitioned the C: drive using Partition Magic 8.0 and
> wound up with the new partition as E:. How do I get the combo drive
> to be E: and the new partition to be D:? Thanks.

- Right click "My Computer"
- Select "Manage"
- Select "Disk Management"
- Right-click whatever drive you're working with and select "Change
Drive Letter and Paths..."

The rest, as they say, is all downhill!

Larry

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

sar130@columbia.edu wrote in news:gkie705s1l9ev64tp5mn0vasc9k17kah1j@
4ax.com:

> Just received an Inspiron 5150 with 40GB HD (C and DVD/CD-RW combo
> drive (D. Partitioned the C: drive using Partition Magic 8.0 and
> wound up with the new partition as E:. How do I get the combo drive
> to be E: and the new partition to be D:? Thanks.

I did that and thought it would be no big deal. It was a year or so ago,
and I don't recall specifics, but there were already some settings for the
DVD/CD drive as D: that were annoying, and I soon went back to the new
partition being E:.

--
Tom McCune
My PGP Page & FAQ: http://www.McCune.cc/PGP.htm

 

[gus]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Tom McCune wrote:

> sar130@columbia.edu wrote in news:gkie705s1l9ev64tp5mn0vasc9k17kah1j@
> 4ax.com:
>
>
>>Just received an Inspiron 5150 with 40GB HD (C and DVD/CD-RW combo
>>drive (D. Partitioned the C: drive using Partition Magic 8.0 and
>>wound up with the new partition as E:. How do I get the combo drive
>>to be E: and the new partition to be D:? Thanks.
>
>
> I did that and thought it would be no big deal. It was a year or so ago,
> and I don't recall specifics, but there were already some settings for the
> DVD/CD drive as D: that were annoying, and I soon went back to the new
> partition being E:.

That's been the standard since before I can remember, i.e., drive
letters are assigned first to the real devices, C: & D:, then to any
additional partions, E:. I don't think I'd try to monkey with that. Is
it a problem for you?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

I always make my optical drives Q (and R if I have two) It gets them out of
the way and harks back to the early days of DOS where the CD was assigned Q.

tom
"Gus" <GusPod@optOFFline.XXXX.net> wrote in message
news:whMdc.6598$Eg.1402872@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
> Tom McCune wrote:
>
> > sar130@columbia.edu wrote in news:gkie705s1l9ev64tp5mn0vasc9k17kah1j@
> > 4ax.com:
> >
> >
> >>Just received an Inspiron 5150 with 40GB HD (C and DVD/CD-RW combo
> >>drive (D. Partitioned the C: drive using Partition Magic 8.0 and
> >>wound up with the new partition as E:. How do I get the combo drive
> >>to be E: and the new partition to be D:? Thanks.
> >
> >
> > I did that and thought it would be no big deal. It was a year or so
ago,
> > and I don't recall specifics, but there were already some settings for
the
> > DVD/CD drive as D: that were annoying, and I soon went back to the new
> > partition being E:.
>
> That's been the standard since before I can remember, i.e., drive
> letters are assigned first to the real devices, C: & D:, then to any
> additional partions, E:. I don't think I'd try to monkey with that. Is
> it a problem for you?
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Yes, make them X and Y if you like. Then change again to D and E.



"Lawrence Glasser" <lglasser@spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:40774C1D.D5657184@spamcop.net...
> sar130@columbia.edu wrote:
> >
> > Just received an Inspiron 5150 with 40GB HD (C and DVD/CD-RW combo
> > drive (D. Partitioned the C: drive using Partition Magic 8.0 and
> > wound up with the new partition as E:. How do I get the combo drive
> > to be E: and the new partition to be D:? Thanks.
>
> - Right click "My Computer"
> - Select "Manage"
> - Select "Disk Management"
> - Right-click whatever drive you're working with and select "Change
> Drive Letter and Paths..."
>
> The rest, as they say, is all downhill!
>
> Larry

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Gus <GusPod@optOFFline.XXXX.net> wrote in news:whMdc.6598$Eg.1402872
@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net:

> That's been the standard since before I can remember, i.e., drive
> letters are assigned first to the real devices, C: & D:, then to any
> additional partions, E:. I don't think I'd try to monkey with that. Is
> it a problem for you?

Obviously it is not a problem for me, or I wouldn't have expressed my
preference for it by changeing to it. But doing so, does screw up software
that has been installed to use the CD drive as D. I just found it easier
to return the CD drive designation to the original setting.

--
Tom McCune
My PGP Page & FAQ: http://www.McCune.cc/PGP.htm

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Tom McCune <news@DELETE_THISmccune.cc> wrote:

>Gus <GusPod@optOFFline.XXXX.net> wrote:

>> That's been the standard since before I can remember, i.e., drive
>> letters are assigned first to the real devices, C: & D:, then to any
>> additional partions, E:. I don't think I'd try to monkey with that. Is
>> it a problem for you?

>Obviously it is not a problem for me, or I wouldn't have expressed my
>preference for it by changeing to it. But doing so, does screw up software
>that has been installed to use the CD drive as D. I just found it easier
>to return the CD drive designation to the original setting.

Exactly. In Win9x implementations, adding logical drives by
repartitioning with PM or whatever pushed the CD-ROM drive
designations to the back of the list. Unfortunately, Windows
remembered where it had been installed from, and every time you
had to put the CD back in for Windows to find something it
needed, you always got a "can't find it, tell me where it is"
message that finally allowed you to tell it that the D: drive it
had installed from and was looking for was now K:, and that's
where it will find the factory CD.

I was pleasantly surprised when, after partitioning my new D4400
with XPPro, that D: and E:, my CD drives, remained D: and E:, and
that the logical drives I established picked up with F:. Oh,
frabjous joy; changing M$ stuff requiring the original CD be put
in was no longer a major PITA.

Another change from the Win9x practice: adding a second physical
HD to a Win9x machine resulted in it getting the D: designation,
with all the logical drives on the first HD going up a letter,
then the logical drives for the second HD coming after those.
[And pushing the CD drive even further away from where M$ would
look for the factory CD. ;->] I just put a second HD in my
D4400, and under XP it picked up where the first HD's partitions
left off. No insisting on being D:.
--
OJ III
[Email sent to Yahoo addy is burned before reading.
Lower and crunch the sig and you'll net me at comcast]

 

[nick]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

On Sat, 10 Apr 2004 14:52:25 -0400, in alt.sys.pc-clone.dell, Ogden Johnson
III <oj3usmc@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Another change from the Win9x practice: adding a second physical
>HD to a Win9x machine resulted in it getting the D: designation,
>with all the logical drives on the first HD going up a letter,
>then the logical drives for the second HD coming after those.
>[And pushing the CD drive even further away from where M$ would
>look for the factory CD. ;->] I just put a second HD in my
>D4400, and under XP it picked up where the first HD's partitions
>left off. No insisting on being D:.

The 'Win9x practice' was to assign drive letters to primary partitions on
all hard drives before assigning letters to logical drives in extended
partitions.

Logical drives on the first hard drive would only change letters if you
created a primary partition on the new drive.

If you wanted to keep the drive letters for the first hard drive the same,
you just needed to create an extended partition on the new drive instead of
a primary partition. Then all the partitions on the first drive would have
been assigned letters before the partitions on the second drive.

--
Nick <mailto:tanstaafl@pobox.com>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"Nick" <tanstaafl@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:l33h70dakhtakqkde8em7dmae5qh30kmk7@4ax.com...
>
> On Sat, 10 Apr 2004 14:52:25 -0400, in alt.sys.pc-clone.dell, Ogden
Johnson
> III <oj3usmc@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >Another change from the Win9x practice: adding a second physical
> >HD to a Win9x machine resulted in it getting the D: designation,
> >with all the logical drives on the first HD going up a letter,
> >then the logical drives for the second HD coming after those.
> >[And pushing the CD drive even further away from where M$ would
> >look for the factory CD. ;->] I just put a second HD in my
> >D4400, and under XP it picked up where the first HD's partitions
> >left off. No insisting on being D:.
>
> The 'Win9x practice' was to assign drive letters to primary partitions on
> all hard drives before assigning letters to logical drives in extended
> partitions.

Are you sure that it wasn't the practice of assigning drive letters to
primary partitions on all drives (hard or cd or whatever) before assigning
letters elsewhere?

I seem to always notice that (assuming only 1 partition per drive) the
primary/master was always C: no matter what. And if something was on the
secondary/master (no matter what it was) it became d:

....[thwack]...

 

[nick]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

On Sat, 17 Apr 2004 04:55:18 GMT, in alt.sys.pc-clone.dell, "Thomas G.
Marshall" <tgm2tothe10thpower@replacetextwithnumber.hotmail.com> wrote:

>Are you sure that it wasn't the practice of assigning drive letters to
>primary partitions on all drives (hard or cd or whatever) before assigning
>letters elsewhere?
>
>I seem to always notice that (assuming only 1 partition per drive) the
>primary/master was always C: no matter what. And if something was on the
>secondary/master (no matter what it was) it became d:

Yes, I'm quite sure. CD-ROM drives were assigned drive letters after the
internal hard drives.

A common plea in Win9x newsgroups was: "I just added a new hard drive (or
partitioned my existing drive), and now my CD-ROM drive letter is different
and that broke a whole bunch of stuff. HELP!"

This happened to me the first time I added a new hard drive to a PC with a
CD-ROM drive. Ever since, I've made a habit of always changing the
CD-ROM drive to 'M:' when I get a new computer; that leaves me lots of room
to add new hard drive partitions without changing the CD-ROM letter.


There were also regular pleas for help in the Win9x newsgroups from people
who added a second hard drive and discovered that some of the partitions on
their first hard drive (i.e., D: and above) wound up with new drive letters.
(Caused by creating a primary partition on the new drive.) This also
happened to me the first time I added a second hard drive to a PC.


Note: the newer operating systems allow drive letters to be changed by the
user, but I believe most current versions of Windows still default to the
same letter sequence that has been used since MS-DOS days.


Here's part (somewhat edited) of a canned post I used to post regularly when
I was hanging around in Win9x newsgroups:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's some more detailed information on how drive letters are assigned:

The first floppy disk drive will always be 'A:', a second floppy (if
present) will be always be 'B:'.

When MS-DOS/Win9x starts up, it assigns drive letter C: to the first primary
partition on the master drive on IDE channel 0. Then it assigns drive
letters in sequence to the first primary partition (if any) on additional
internal hard drives.

Once the first primary partition on each drive is assigned a drive letter,
then the OS starts over with logical drives in extended partitions. Any
logical drives on the first physical drive are assigned letters first, then
the logical drives on each additional physical drive in sequence.

After the first primary partitions and all the logical drives in extended
partitions are assigned letters, the OS then assigns letters to any
additional primary partitions on the hard drives, starting with the master
drive.

Once all the hard drives are done, the OS then assigns letters to CD-ROM
drives, Zip drives, etc.

So if you have two physical hard drives you can, to some extent, change the
order in which drive letters are assigned by choosing which type of
partition(s) will be on each drive. You have to have at least one primary
partition on your master (boot) drive; on the slave drive it's optional.

CD-ROM letter drive letters will always be assigned *after* the hard
drive letters. You can go into Device Manager and specify the drive
letters for CD-ROMs. On a new system, I usually set my CD-ROM drive to a
high letter (M:, for example) so it doesn't get changed if I add a new hard
drive or create more partitions.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not sure about the order for external USB/Firewire drives, but they were
probably done after all the internal IDE/SCSI drives (of whatever type).
And I have no idea about the order used when a system has both IDE and SCSI
drives; I would _guess_ that the IDE drives would have been assigned letters
first, but that's just a guess.

--
Nick <mailto:tanstaafl@pobox.com>

"Natural laws have no pity." R.A.H.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Nick <tanstaafl@pobox.com> wrote:

>Note: the newer operating systems allow drive letters to be changed by the
>user, but I believe most current versions of Windows still default to the
>same letter sequence that has been used since MS-DOS days.

Wrong. I can't speak to NT4/Win2K/WinMe, because I have never
added a second drive to any one of those systems. But, with my
D4400 running under XPPro, when I used PM to partition the
physical C:\ drive into several logical partitions, unlike my
previous experience with doing the same under Win9x versions, my
CDs retained their D:\ and E:\ designations and the logical
drives I created picked up with F:\. By default, under any
definition of default I am familiar with.

When I installed a second physical HD, it, by default under XP,
was recognized as L:\. following K:\ a portable ZIP drive, and
J:\, the last logical drive on my original HD. When I
partitioned that with PM 7, the drives in the logical partition
picked up at K:. Again, by default, under any definition of
default I am familiar with.

So, although I don't know what the "current versions of Windows"
labeled NT4, 2000, and ME "default to", WinXP doesn't "default to
the same letter sequence that has been used since MS-DOS days."
--
OJ III
[Email sent to Yahoo address is burned before reading.
Lower and crunch the sig and you'll net me at comcast.]

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"Nick" <tanstaafl@pobox.com> coughed up the following...
news:6s73805ii394kf4o9461jatkmjh8is7qku@4ax.com...

....[thwack]...


> Note: the newer operating systems allow drive letters to be changed by
the
> user, but I believe most current versions of Windows still default to
the
> same letter sequence that has been used since MS-DOS days.

By default, my WinXP installation ordered C, D, and E: this way:

primary/master (HD)
secondary/master (DVD)
primary/slave (HD)

Thanks for the historical info! I'd forgotten all that!

Thomas

 

[nick]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

On Sat, 17 Apr 2004 23:23:57 GMT, in alt.sys.pc-clone.dell, "Thomas G.
Marshall" <tgm2tothe10thpower@replacetextwithnumber.hotmail.com> wrote:

>"Nick" <tanstaafl@pobox.com> coughed up the following...
>news:6s73805ii394kf4o9461jatkmjh8is7qku@4ax.com...
>
>> Note: the newer operating systems allow drive letters to be changed by
>the
>> user, but I believe most current versions of Windows still default to
>the
>> same letter sequence that has been used since MS-DOS days.
>
>By default, my WinXP installation ordered C, D, and E: this way:
>
> primary/master (HD)
> secondary/master (DVD)
> primary/slave (HD)

I stand corrected!

--
Nick <mailto:tanstaafl@pobox.com>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

My WinXP Home, when I partitioned the HD, my DVD & DVD R/W drives,
remained D: and E: drives and the HD became c: f: g: & h:. When I added
the second hard drive, it became i:. When I used Ghost to image my
original drive to the 2nd internal drive, that drive when connected
became i: j: k: l:. Currently, the 2nd internal HD is not connected and
I have an external firewire HD which Windows calls i:, as I have not
partitioned this external drive. All my HD's are 120 gig and formatted
to Fat32, my preference.

As for me, I'm glad that WinXP will keep my DVD/CD drives the same and
both WinXP and PM adjust to the hard drives as I connect them. I have a
lot of games that probably would not play properly if I tried to assign
the DVD/CD drives to other letters.





Ogden Johnson III wrote:
> Nick <tanstaafl@pobox.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Note: the newer operating systems allow drive letters to be changed by the
>>user, but I believe most current versions of Windows still default to the
>>same letter sequence that has been used since MS-DOS days.
>
>
> Wrong. I can't speak to NT4/Win2K/WinMe, because I have never
> added a second drive to any one of those systems. But, with my
> D4400 running under XPPro, when I used PM to partition the
> physical C:\ drive into several logical partitions, unlike my
> previous experience with doing the same under Win9x versions, my
> CDs retained their D:\ and E:\ designations and the logical
> drives I created picked up with F:\. By default, under any
> definition of default I am familiar with.
>
> When I installed a second physical HD, it, by default under XP,
> was recognized as L:\. following K:\ a portable ZIP drive, and
> J:\, the last logical drive on my original HD. When I
> partitioned that with PM 7, the drives in the logical partition
> picked up at K:. Again, by default, under any definition of
> default I am familiar with.
>
> So, although I don't know what the "current versions of Windows"
> labeled NT4, 2000, and ME "default to", WinXP doesn't "default to
> the same letter sequence that has been used since MS-DOS days."

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

> Nick <tanstaafl@pobox.com> wrote:
> > Note: the newer operating systems allow drive letters to be
> > changed by the user, but I believe most current versions of
> > Windows still default to the same letter sequence that has
> > been used since MS-DOS days.
>
"Ogden Johnson III" <oj3usmc@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Wrong. I can't speak to NT4/Win2K/WinMe, because I have
> never added a second drive to any one of those systems. But,
> with my D4400 running under XPPro, when I used PM to
> partition the physical C:\ drive into several logical partitions,
> unlike my previous experience with doing the same under
> Win9x versions, my CDs retained their D:\ and E:\ designations
> and the logical drives I created picked up with F:\. By default,
> under any definition of default I am familiar with.
>
> When I installed a second physical HD, it, by default under XP,
> was recognized as L:\. following K:\ a portable ZIP drive, and
> J:\, the last logical drive on my original HD. When I
> partitioned that with PM 7, the drives in the logical partition
> picked up at K:. Again, by default, under any definition of
> default I am familiar with.

And therein lies the key, Ogden -- different meanings of "default". What Nick
means by default is how drive letters are assigned in a fresh system with no
previous assignments. In contrast, each of your examples is about adding
partitions to a pre-installed OS and what the new partitions will "default to"
in that pre-installed system.

Since DOS/9x didn't "remember" drive letters, they were assigned anew at every
boot, so adding partitions to a pre-installed Win9x system would result in
drive letters moving around. We all agree on that part. (FTR, the sequence is
delineated in KB51978.)

If you are installing a NT-family OS on a brand new system with multiple
partitions, I think you'll find the default drive letters, as Nick says, will
follow the old MS-DOS/Win9x sequence.

In a pre-existing NT-family OS, though, previously assigned drive letters are
"remembered" and not reassigned. However, *new* partitions will be assigned
"default" drive letters (and subsequently remembered) as per Nick's summary,
with the caveat that they must skip over letters already assigned. IOW,
NT-family OS's don't reassign the previous defaults, but do follow the default
rules for newly discovered partitions.

BTW, NT-family OS's remember drive letters by associating (and recording in the
registry) the drive letter with the partition's "signature". The signature is
derived from the DiskID (a 4-byte code in the disk's master boot sector) and
the starting sector number of the partition itself. Accordingly, any existing
partition will lose its remembered drive letter (and be reassigned at the next
boot, per Nick's sequence while skipping over letters not being changed) if the
DiskID is changed or if the starting location of the partition is changed
(e.g., as often happens if partitions are resized). That's why sometimes the
drive letters seem to "stick" and sometimes they don't.