Reassigning hard drive letters

[bigonroad]

My problem: My computer keeps failing to assign letters to two partitions. I can set it up fine in diskmgmt.msc, but as soon as I restart, it loses them again.


My setup: I have 2 hard disks.

• Hard disk 1 has 3 partitions.
• Hard disk 2 has 2 partitions.

However, the hard disk 2 partitions are not labelled or assigned a number automatically by windows. I can assign them one, but it resets when I restart the computer!

Background: I'm running Windows 7, which I installed yesterday. I've never had a problem like this before. Once assigned a letter, all the files are intact and accessible on the missing partitions.

An Image: Check the image below to see my setup in visual terms:

Any help would be much appreciated!
Bless,
Chris

 

[mitchell65]

Hi Chris and welcome to the forum. What letters are you trying to assign? Are you using letters at the bottom end of the alphabet? If so try W,X or Y (I see you have used X)

 

[fishnbanjo]

Are the drives internal or USB/eSATA external drives? Windows 7 generally will not assign a drive letter on external drives in a lot of cases but once the user assigns a drive letter it should remain as the default. If the drive letter assigned is right when you boot into SAFE Mode then it may be some sort of software interference. You may want to review the Microsoft KB Article to see if it references your issue http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

 

[sygnus21]

Windows 7 generally will not assign a drive letter on external drives in a lot of cases

Hi fishnbanjo,

Hmmm......Perhaps I'm missing what you're saying because Windows will assign drive letters to external drives. In fact I hadn't seen where it didn't happen, unless there was a problem.

I just now hooked up a thumb drive, an external hard drive, and WD Passport Drive. All the drive letters were automatically assigned by Windows.




@ bigonroad,

Did you "manually" assign any drive letters?

Also, do this, try assigning a drive letter to just the "Photo" drive and see if it will stick. Let us know.

 

[Wishmaster]

It should be assigning letters on its own, but i always thought Windows wanted them in certain order.
Meaning, the 1st partition of each drive gets 1st letter then moving to second partition on each drive assigning alphabetcally.

Such as :
Disk 0: P1(C) P2(E) P3 (G)
Disk 1: P1(D) P2(F)
CD ROM: (H) Or whatever letter you desire

I'm not certain this will make a difference, so please correct me if wrong.

This may not even be the cause, Just a thought.

 

[whs]

You have a very strange setup. Your Music partition is the Active partition containing the MBR. That's one of the first things I would fix. Has there been an OS previously on that partition?

 

[sygnus21]

whs I noticed that as well. What I wanted him to try first was to see if he can assign a drive letter to his photo drive only. If he could, than the problem is not the hard drive but maybe the partitions. And if the music drive is the MBR he can't assign any other letter than what was assigned. Unfortunately he doesn't know what letter that was because it's blank.

That's my shot in the dark anyway.

But.... I had a different problem where I wanted to move my MBR from my "Games" drive to the "C" drive and SIW2 gave me a fix to do it. I think the OP should try and move the MBR first using SIW2's fix than see if he can assign drive letters.

Again, my shot in the dark.

Here's the post - http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/83800-boot-loader-separate-partition.html

 

[whs]

It could be a problem of hidden partitions. Go to this thread and have a look at my post #14. Look at the paragraph that starts with "Alternatively". Maybe you can unblock the situation with Partition Wizard as described. All links are in this thread.

 

[sygnus21]

I guess we won't know until he posts back.

 

[SIW2]

Boot into 7 - don't assign any letters.

In regedit , go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

click on mounted devices and see what is listed under Dos devices in the right pane ( post a screenie )

My problem: My computer keeps failing to assign letters to two partitions. I can set it up fine in diskmgmt.msc, but as soon as I restart, it loses them again.


My setup: I have 2 hard disks.

• Hard disk 1 has 3 partitions.
• Hard disk 2 has 2 partitions.

However, the hard disk 2 partitions are not labelled or assigned a number automatically by windows. I can assign them one, but it resets when I restart the computer!

Background: I'm running Windows 7, which I installed yesterday. I've never had a problem like this before. Once assigned a letter, all the files are intact and accessible on the missing partitions.

An Image: Check the image below to see my setup in visual terms:

Any help would be much appreciated!
Bless,
Chris

 

[bigonroad]

Wow, that was a lot of responses. Will try to answer all...

@mitchell65 no, I haven't, mostly tried E and F, as they were on XP on this same machine yesterday. Will try that, but I suspect it won't make a massive difference.

@fishnbanjo sorry, should have made it clear, these are both internal SATA2 drives.

@sygnus21 manually assigning letters works fine, on either or both drives, and i can then access them through My computer. After reboot though, they lose their assignation, whatever I try.

@wishmaster I'm fairly sure this isn't correct. However, assigned in the order you said, still didnt work.

@whs Yes, it wasnt working, when neither partition was 'active', so I turned it on. Sadly you cant turn off active. Should I wipe the MBR on that drive?

@sygnus21 and @whs will try both your solutions and get back to you.

Thanks!
Chris

 

[SIW2]

Did you check the mounted devices ?

My little app Sygnus mentioned won't help here - your boot situation is fine as it is.

This is what you are looking for:

 

[bigonroad]

let's get this registry started!

Ok, so I got into regedit, and it tells me this:


Basically, the main difference is that there is a Q drive. Forgot to mention that My computer can see a Q: drive too, but its "not accessible, access is denied".

Is there a free partitioning tool I can use to completely wipe this drive and start again on it? I already have both partitions backed up on Hard Drive 1, so I am willing to do this...

Bless,
Chris

 

[bigonroad]

Okay, I'm using partition magic to completely wipe the hard drive. Then I will make one partition, and see if Windows can recognise it each time.

 

[bigonroad]

I think that's working. Just created partitions, and they stayed on reboot.

I *think* the Q drive is due to installing Office 2010 beta, meaning that everything is now working fine, I think!

Thanks for your help guys!

 

[whs]

I think that's working. Just created partitions, and they stayed on reboot.

I *think* the Q drive is due to installing Office 2010 beta, meaning that everything is now working fine, I think!

Thanks for your help guys!

That is correct. Office 2010 creates a virtual drive (usually Q) for the installer. When you mount images of some imaging programs (e.g. Paragon, Macrium), you get virtual drives too. They disappear with the next reboot.

 

[gregrocker]

Partition Magic does not play well with Win7. Use free Partition Wizard bootable CD instead, which has helped with hundreds of partioning operations here without failure.

First thing I would do is rightclick that Music partition to Modify>Set to Inactive, then do not mark random partitions Active in the future.

 

[edward chan]

Drive letter disappears after each reboot

I have the exact same problem as thread starter. Without any manual assignment the print screen shows that E is mounted but I would not be able to see it. The drive in question is a 2tb sata2 externally connected via usb

I did not mount any office application on my newly bought computer

Any fresh help appreciated

 

[whs]

I have the exact same problem as thread starter. Without any manual assignment the print screen shows that E is mounted but I would not be able to see it. The drive in question is a 2tb sata2 externally connected via usb

I did not mount any office application on my newly bought computer

Any fresh help appreciated

Would be easier if you posted a screenshot of your Disk Management.

 

[edward chan]

I suspect my master boot record could be the problem and i reformatted it (using quick format) using seagate's proprietary hardisk software.

And now it appears again. Thanks all for listening and contributing