Drive Letters

harry12 · #1 06-16-2007, 10:39 AM

As a win98SE user it isn't a problem - the C-drive has the programs and I've moved the CD drive to "Z" so I can have lots of other drives wherever I like.

Now, the real details are that the program drive is partitioned and called C and D - some programs are on D, but mostly it's copies of some C-programs (which should be removed, I know). The drive is OK but it is connected internally to the CD/DVD drive (=Z), leaving a spare IDE ribbon on ch-2 (?).

I've got an empty 10G IDE drive I want to use to hold Paint Shop Pro, but not the photos themselves. This I've formatted using the IDE/USB adaptor, but I want it fixed inside the PC.

Normally, My photos are on an External drive with a USB/IDE converter (and PSU) so these will appear as the next drive ....E, or if first I plug-in a flash-card-reader with several slots, they use up the next-available letters, so my external storage becomes "I" - -( this is not a problem since I know where the picture-files are.)

The issue is that if I install this new IDE-drive on the ribbon it comes up as "D" - which forces the second partion (of "C") to become "E"....this, I suspect is not likely to work, since the internal drive also has programs that run-over onto "D" -I see a nightmadre ensuing!

- so my Question is - How do I force the new HDD to become drive-E?

[[se note that the CD-rom and HDD havve shared this Ch1 cable for some years - and I can write CD/DVD with no problems - I'm not after great speed and I don't believe having both on the same cable is really a big issue.....although it used to be perceived-wisdom to separate HDD's and CD-drives for a reason that had little sound physic, iMHO.]]
Reluctantly I might remove the C+D drive and install the 10G drive to do this operation, using Win98SE as the chosen OS as I have the CD....but it's a long-winded fag and I might even be tempted to use Ubuntu as this has The Gimp which will do anything PSP does....but I just fancy sticking with this horrid C+D arrangement which works well enough, if only I can make it C+D+E when the mood takes me.

TopFarmer · #2 06-16-2007, 10:23 PM

I do not think there is any way to assign drive letters, maybe a third party program. When one adds a hdd with a primary partition it will be assigned a drive letter before any extended partitions. They only way I know is to delete the primary partition on the 10 g (will loose all data) and make only extended partitions, then it should become E:. I think this site will explain
http://fdisk.radified.com/

harry12 · #3 06-19-2007, 10:40 AM

TopFarmer, thanks
- - - this also helps (from PCGuide dot com):-
"....Having drive letters change is not only confusing, it can cause programs to malfunction, because many applications record what disk and directory they are in and expect that they will remain stationary (which stinks, but hey, that's life.) The rise in importance of the Windows registry has made this situation even worse, since programs routinely record pointers to files, including drive letters, in the registry.

There is one relatively simple way to avoid having this letter-shifting happen: don't create a primary partition on any hard disks in the system other than the first one. It is perfectly legal to only create an extended partition on a hard disk, and put all of the partitions in it. The only place that a primary partition is absolutely needed is on the first hard disk, because it is required to boot the operating system. You cannot normally boot from an extended partition volume anyway (although some motherboards may let you)...."

Not quite sure how I'll fix it, but yr suggestion looks like the answer...have my second HDD as an "extended" one, so it takes the Letter "E" - I'll see if it works. Installing a HDD should not be this difficult....I wonder why the "Drive letter" cannot be written inside the Drives themselves...if every partition had a letter, it couldn't move about.
When moving to another PC it might be confusing at first, but not for long...indeed it might be possible to have option "Guest Letter" and swap between two......I never cease to be amazed how difficult experts think things need to be. HDD have been a pain since DOS days! - and Linux is another can of Worms for Formatting.
Thanks TopFarmer