Solved OS disk not disk 0

[Britton30]

My OS disk, C, is attached to my SATA_0 port but my empty disk, F, always is disk 0 in disk management. I've swapped the cables, used different cables and SATA ports, but this rougue F disk alway takes the disk 0 position, how can I make C be disk 0?

 

[pooch]

The only thing that springs to mind is to change the drive letters lol not very practical, but I do wonder what would happen if you were to remove the drive letter from f and reboot. I would suggest change cables in this state but it seems to be a Windows thing which would make it pointless.
Maybe you also need to disconnect the drive while it has no drive letter and reboot so that the C drive takes the 0 place and then reconnect with windows running.

 

[Corazon]

Wasn't there a long thread about this a while ago...the gist of it was basically that

• it actually doesn't matter how Windows numbers the actual disks (the physical drives) and
• you don't really have any control over it as it seems to be dependent on how the BIOS enumerates the drives at bootup before Windows starts, and which drives respond to the initial query first. That was a pretty good theory and although not 100% proven, it seems very plausible.

In other words...don't worry about it.

 

[pooch]

Good answer and very likely correct but I think this is a personal thing. I to like my C, D, E, Drives to correspond to 0, 1, 2, etc even if it makes no difference to the running of my PC and I find it annoying when it does not work like this

 

[rraod]

Please see this link for explanation on this topic.

The disk drive numbers may not correspond as expected to the SATA channel numbers when you set up Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows 7 on a computer that has multiple SATA or RAID disks

 

[Corazon]

pooch, I can totally understand this. I'm a bit OCD too.

 

[razy60]

Would how the disc's are seen in the Bios have any bearing on the drive letter's?.
One instruction that i was given some time ago was to have the OS drive in port 1 the CD/DVD in 2 and the rest in the rest, also on install have only 1 hdd and the CDDVD drive attached. not sure if it actually makes a difference, but you never know

 

[Corazon]

No, the way Windows numbers the disks has no bearing on drive letters. Those are assigned per partition and Windows keeps that information in its registry (unless a partition unexpectedly changes, for example because a boot CD such as Partition Wizard was used to change partition layouts on a disk).

 

[lehnerus2000]

Device Properties

I had a similar issue.
I discovered that the "Disk Management" tool tells you where the drive is connected (sort of).

Right click on the HDD label (e.g. Disk 0) in "Disk Management".
Select "Properties".
On the "General" tab there is an entry called "Location:".



I say sort of because when I checked my SATA connections, the results were a bit strange.
SATA 1- Ch 0, T 0, L 0
SATA 2 - Ch 1, T 0, L 0
SATA 3 - Ch 0, T 1, L 0
SATA 4 - Ch 1, T 1, L 0
SATA 5 - Ch 0, T 0, L 0 (I actually believe that this is T 2)
SATA 6 - Ch 1, T 0, L 0 (I actually believe that this is T 2)

I was experiencing some weird glitches.
I wanted to put all of my drives on the same channel, to determine if one of my channels was faulty.

When I arranged the HDDs according to my belief, they appeared in the "correct" order in "Disk Management"

 

[Britton30]

Good answer and very likely correct but I think this is a personal thing. I to like my C, D, E, Drives to correspond to 0, 1, 2, etc even if it makes no difference to the running of my PC and I find it annoying when it does not work like this

Exactly my thoughts.

Please see this link for explanation on this topic.

The disk drive numbers may not correspond as expected to the SATA channel numbers when you set up Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows 7 on a computer that has multiple SATA or RAID disks

Thanks, that explained its a windows glitch.

pooch, I can totally understand this. I'm a bit OCD too.

Me too guys. I have removed the 2nd disk, rebooted then reinstalled it, removed its drive letter, swapped cables, played with different SATA headers, made the 2nd drive unallocated, but it still won't play nice. Just OCD.
I'm marking this solved. I had taken part in the old thread which was mentioned, I think Gregrocker pointed out it really makes no difference.
thanks to all!

 

[theog]

You may like to have a look at BFK's thread:
http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/178674-diskpart-disk-management-vs-bios.html

 

[Britton30]

Thanks Theog that explains things a bit. Seems Windows can enumerate drives arbitrarily. I swapped cables yet agin and it fell into where I think it should be. C is on SATA_0 and F is on SATA_5.

 

[dougjensen]

Some programs require C: to be disk zero

So from this thread it appears such programs will work only on single drive machines such as laptops.