Losing Just *some* CD/DVD Drive Letter Assignments every boot

[amby19]

I used the Disk Management tool to assign specific drive letters to each non-hard drive on my system (M for my external firewire MyBook drive, R and S for my two CD/DVD drives, P for a virtual CD/DVD drive, U for the memory card reader in my HP All-In-One, and X for my USB flash drive when it's plugged in).

But now when I reboot, I *always* lose the drive letter assignment of just *some* of my CD/DVD drives: one actual CD/DVD drive reverts from "R" to "G", and one virtual CD/DVD drive reverts from "P" to "H". G & H are the first drive letters after my internal hard drives/partitions. None of the others seem to be touched! That actual CD/DVD drive is installed as Master on the Secondary IDE port. (The other real drive is Master on the Primary, and its drive letter never changes).

This started happening only recently (in the last 3 days or so). Before then, I did not have this problem.

Naturally, I ran extensive anti-virus and anti-malware tools against everything on every drive. (That includes Avira Classic Free AV and G Data AV (with both the Kaspersy and the BitDefender engines), A-Squared anti-malware and Spyboy S&D), all with the latest definitions.) But nothing was found. I also run with an absolute minimum of startups; out of the 30 or so that would run if I let them, I only allow about 6 (but that hasn't changed recently).

There hasn't been any significant changes to my system; only a couple of extremely routine software installs. I tried uninstalling them again, but it made no difference.

Any ideas about what's going on and how to fix it?


System Configuration:

Motherboard: Abit IS7 -- Socket 478
Processor: Intel Pentium 4(c) CPU 3.2GHz (Northwood), hyper-threaded
Chipset: Intel i865-ICH5 chipset (Intel 865/848 Springdale)
Storage Controllers: Intel(R) 82801EB/ER Ultra ATA (x2)
Total Memory: 1GB Micron/Crucial DDR-SDRAM
Video Adapter : RADEON 9200 Series
Audio: Auzentech X-Meridian 7.1

Hard Disk : WDC WD3200JD-22KLB0
Hard Disk : WDC WD740GD-00FLC0
Hard Disk : WD External HDD Device IEEE 1394 SBP2 Device
CD/DVD : LITE-ON DVDRW LH-20A1H FW: LL06
CD/DVD : _NEC DVD_RW ND-2510A FW: 2.19

Operating System(s)
Windows System : Microsoft Windows XP/2002 Professional 5.01.2600 (SP 2)

[amby19]

Thank you for your reply, but I'm afraid it wasn't helpful in the least!

While you can supply a volume name for a hard disk volume under Windows XP (which I did a very long time ago and for every Windows box I've ever owned), you CANNOT substitute names for drive letters!

Furthermore, this has NOTHING to do with hard disk drives! And the CD/DVD drives in question already have auto-assigned drive letters -- THAT IS THE PROBLEM! 2 out of the 3 of them are not KEEPING the drive letters I assigned!




Does anyone who knows what they're talking about have any ideas or suggestions, please?

[amby19]

Originally Posted by oldman

I was saying you can't skip alphabetical order of assignment of letters.
I see no reason to not be satisfied with what is Auto assigned.
I have no reason to try it,but i reversed my dvd's from F and G to
F is now G and
G is now F.
The inserted disk is named then.

For some reason, the system didn't take my last reply, or it was deleted in an entirely unacceptable action.

You most definitely CAN skip alphabetical assignments! Everything you've said is 100% incorrect. I don't want to waste my time correcting you yet again, but I strongly suggest you not reply to people's posts with false and manifestly uninformed opinions.

Thank you.

[amby19]

It turns out that a program called MagicDisk, an otherwise solid and well-written virtual CD/DVD drive, was causing the problem. I uninstalled it and replaced it with a different freeware virtual CD/DVD utility, and ALL the arbitrarily assigned drive letters remain what I set them to at all times!

I knew it was possible and that something like this misbehaving utility was at fault, but "others" were both 100% certain it would never work and were 100% certain they knew what they were talking about but did NOT!

No thanks to oldman!