Solved Invalid Drive F:

[seekermeister]

Before the hard drive on which it resided failed, I had my documents located apart from the OS on partition F: Currently, no partition has this drive letter.

This has caused problems with installation of a couple of programs, the last of which is Nero KwikMedia, which since it can't find it, as indicated in the screenshot, fails installation.

When I check the current location of my libraries, they are all on C:, as there were originally. Something is still pointing to F:...how do I determine what, and how do I change it?

 

[Mike Connor]

Error 1327 usually means an invalid drive letter. This is usually caused by an invalid data key in the registry. You can change the drive letter as follows;

Change, add, or remove a drive letter

Regards....Mike Connor

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Have a look at this one.


Registry Editor - Find and Find Next

 

[seekermeister]

Mike Connor,

No, there was a drive F:, which was arbitrarily assigned to an unallocated partition on an unused drive, but I had already changed that drive letter before the problem occurred, and before posting this question.

 

[seekermeister]

Have a look at this one.


Registry Editor - Find and Find Next

I know how to do a search in the registry, but how does this help me to find a drive letter assignment?

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

It seems something, probably in the Windows registry is looking for F: and is not finding it, perhaps removing the offender will sort the issue for you.

 

[Mike Connor]

Mike Connor,

No, there was a drive F:, which was arbitrarily assigned to an unallocated partition on an unused drive, but I had already changed that drive letter before the problem occurred, and before posting this question.

Well obviously something is still pointing to that drive letter. So there is an incorrect data key in the registry. You can either try changing the drive letter back to what it was, or you need to find the invalid data in the registry and delete it.

Regards....Mike Connor

 

[seekermeister]

Bare Foot Kid,

I just put F:\ into the search box, and it came up with a very long list of keys, but from what I can tell, it seems that most, if not all, are dedicated to some particular app, or to some more general key, but none specifically pointing to the library locations, as I figured that the problem is caused by. I'm a bit reluctant to do a wholesale edit of so many keys. Especially since I can't see any that appear to relate.

 

[Shootist]

Before the hard drive on which it resided failed, I had my documents located apart from the OS on partition F: Currently, no partition has this drive letter.

This has caused problems with installation of a couple of programs, the last of which is Nero KwikMedia, which since it can't find it, as indicated in the screenshot, fails installation.

When I check the current location of my libraries, they are all on C:, as there were originally. Something is still pointing to F:...how do I determine what, and how do I change it?

Did you move the Documents folder back to its default location before that drive failed and you removed it from the system.
If not I think that is the problem.

 

[Shootist]

Look at this key in the registry

HKCU\Software\Microsift\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders

And see if it is pointing to that phantom F drive.
Also
HKCU\Software\Microsift\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

Better yet do a search of the registry for F:\Documents or whatever name you used when you moved it to the F drive

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Try a search on Nero or Nero KwikMedia to see what comes up.

 

[seekermeister]

Look at this key in the registry

HKCU\Software\Microsift\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders

And see if it is pointing to that phantom F drive.

I saw this key, just before returning to this thread, and it is pointing to F:, so I shall change it. However, since the libraries all currently show a path to C:, I would have thought that the F: key would have been ignored. There are a number of other keys that state a value name of F:\Documents, which doesn't appear to really be a file path. If I changed all of them to Cocuments, would that work?

 

[seekermeister]

Try a search on Nero or Nero KwikMedia to see what comes up.

There are Nero keys, but then I also have Nero 8 installed, which so far, I'm not aware of a problem with, and since Nero KwikMedia's installation failed, it didn't create a directory, so I don't think that it would have created any reg keys of it's own. However, I will look anyway.

 

[Shootist]

Look at this key in the registry

HKCU\Software\Microsift\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders

And see if it is pointing to that phantom F drive.

I saw this key, just before returning to this thread, and it is pointing to F:, so I shall change it. However, since the libraries all currently show a path to C:, I would have thought that the F: key would have been ignored. There are a number of other keys that state a value name of F:\Documents, which doesn't appear to really be a file path. If I changed all of them to Cocuments, would that work?

Well it should work IF the documents folder is located at C:\Documents. And not its default location.

 

[seekermeister]

Not exactly sure where it is, because there is no documents folder in the root of C:, Documents on the Start Menu goes to a public and private path in C:\Users and C:Users\Public.the folder at C:\users\username\My Documents is a shortcut, and inaccessible,

 

[gregrocker]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/18583-user-folders-restore-default-location.html

 

[seekermeister]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/18583-user-folders-restore-default-location.html

Thanks, the best solution is the easiest one, and this was the easiest.

 

[Chinch]

Darn. I got to you just a few days or so too late. This was a moderately-common problem that I would run into as a system/network administrator for several large companies on domains, etc.

It plagued me for a while... only on some computers would it happen... and they also seemed to be pointing to a non-existent drive letter/mapping and saying installation cannot continue, cannot access drive... F: in this instance. What would happen is users would create a drive mapping to a shared folder on the server, then remap their My Documents folder (or some other user profile folder) for some reason. They had their own user drives. Of course they would not check "Reconnect on restart", and then there begins the problem. Some users seem to just try to cause trouble for sysadmins, huh? Sometimes their logic... I would just have to accept that it made sense to them at the time. LOL.

I eventually did narrow it down and find that the problem did indeed reside in the default user folders locations, with a "hanging" entry in there. Fixing that solved the problem almost every time.

Good job though, you guys at least got the thing pinned down, it was really irritating to me when I would come across it... and when doing a time-limited upgrade roll-out to 50 computers or more, I often didn't have time to sit there and really focus on these types of problems that pop up on 1, maybe 2 computers in the organization. It was just like $#%! -- that one again? Next computer... You'd rather have 49 computers up and running like they expect than spend hours troubleshooting a (seemingly bizarre, random) problem like this and not get the upgrade done.

Anyway, TMI. Again, good job... and too bad there's no points for giving you the answer a few hours after you discovered it. LOL. Maybe next time I'll get ya...