Drive letters don't survive a reboot

  • Thread starter Thread starter Vince C.
  • Start date Start date
V

Vince C.

Hi.

I've installed Windows 2000 Server under VirtualBox and I've added a virtual
disk, which appears as E: after the virtual CDROM drive, D: . But I'd like
the CDROM to be Z: and the primary slave disk to be D: .

When I reboot the virtual machine, the CDROM drive takes back D: and the
secondary slave disk, E: . I've found no way to have Windows store the
drive letters that *I* want.

Has anyone already had that problem? Is there a fix?

Thanks in advance for any hint/suggestion.
 
Hi.

I've installed Windows 2000 Server under VirtualBox and I've added a virtual
disk, which appears as E: after the virtual CDROM drive, D: . But I'd like
the CDROM to be Z: and the primary slave disk to be D: .

When I reboot the virtual machine, the CDROM drive takes back D: and the
secondary slave disk, E: . I've found no way to have Windows store the
drive letters that *I* want.

Has anyone already had that problem? Is there a fix?

Thanks in advance for any hint/suggestion.
Click to expand...

AS administrator start/settings/administrative tools/Computer Mangements/Disk
Management right click the CD and choose to change drive letter.
That is it
Borge in sunny Perth, Australia
 
nesredep said:
AS administrator start/settings/administrative tools/Computer
Mangements/Disk Management right click the CD and choose to change drive
letter. That is it
Borge in sunny Perth, Australia
Click to expand...

Newbie said:
Go into COMPUTER MANAGEMENT & FIX a drive letter then
Click to expand...

Thanks to both of you but it's what I had done (but not mentionned clearly)
in fact. Yet the drive letters I set don't survive a reboot.
 
Thanks to both of you but it's what I had done (but not mentionned clearly)
in fact. Yet the drive letters I set don't survive a reboot.
Click to expand...

If your disk has dynamic facilities or if the disk has an operating system on it
you cannot expect a change of letter to survive a reboot.

I have never managed to change a disk from dynamic other than store all the info
on an external disk, partition and reformat and the restore the data.
good luck

Borge in sunny Perth, Australia
 
If your disk has dynamic facilities or if the disk has an operating system
on it you cannot expect a change of letter to survive a reboot.
Click to expand...

No, it's not the system disk, just the CD-ROM and an additional, secondary
slave disk. System drive is always C: (I'd say hopefully). But the CDROM
and the slave disk are always D: and E: respectively whatever I do and the
drive letters I set the drives to in Computer mnagement / Disk management.

For now and for a while I'll cope with it but I do need to have my data
maintained on a separate disk. Disk C is for the system. I can then share
my virtual data disk amongst many virtual machines, be it for projects,
downloaded files aso.
 
No, it's not the system disk, just the CD-ROM and an additional, secondary
slave disk. System drive is always C: (I'd say hopefully). But the CDROM
and the slave disk are always D: and E: respectively whatever I do and the
drive letters I set the drives to in Computer mnagement / Disk management.

For now and for a while I'll cope with it but I do need to have my data
maintained on a separate disk. Disk C is for the system. I can then share
my virtual data disk amongst many virtual machines, be it for projects,
downloaded files aso.
Click to expand...

I wonder if you have tried to just change the CD-Rom to Z and leave the disk
alone, just as a try - let me know this morning as I am seeing a friend more
knowledgeable that I just after lunch.

For your information, my stats are:
Win 2000, Pentium IV 3Ghz
1 Gb memory,ADSL
200+200 GB disks partitioned C:D:E;as 9.76GB 88.2GB,88.2GB
F: G: as 93.1,93.1 for data
200GB USB2 for Acronis Images (backups)
Borge Pedersen :-)
Perth, Australia
mailto:[email protected]
remove SPAM and underlines for email
 
nesredep egrob said:
I wonder if you have tried to just change the CD-Rom to Z and leave the
disk alone, just as a try - let me know this morning as I am seeing a
friend more knowledgeable that I just after lunch.
Click to expand...

Yes, I have. Once I just changed the CDROM drive letter alone, then
rebooted. It persisted only until I changed the secondary slave to D.
Afterwards I could even restore the slave letter drive to its initial
value, no way: the (virtual) CDROM kept its drive letter upon reboot. In
fact, after I made that change, both drives got back to the defaults each
time I rebooted.

Now I have even removed the secondary slave and yet the CDROM gets its
letter D back at each reboot whatever I set it to.

My virtual machine specs are:
Core2 Duo (T5600) @ 1.83GHz
384MB RAM
Master HD (VBox HardDisk): 10 GB
Chipset: 82xxx
 
Yes, I have. Once I just changed the CDROM drive letter alone, then
rebooted. It persisted only until I changed the secondary slave to D.
Afterwards I could even restore the slave letter drive to its initial
value, no way: the (virtual) CDROM kept its drive letter upon reboot. In
fact, after I made that change, both drives got back to the defaults each
time I rebooted.

Now I have even removed the secondary slave and yet the CDROM gets its
letter D back at each reboot whatever I set it to.
Click to expand...

OK - so you have established that the secondary has nothing to do with it - when
you close down, do you see a pause where the computer tell you it is saving your
settings?]
If not I should go back to the backup that you have on some external drive
somewhere in your office - maybe even the very first one, like the one I call
'skeleton'

For your information, my stats are:
Win 2000, Pentium IV 3Ghz
1 Gb memory,ADSL
200+200 GB disks partitioned C:D:E;as 9.76GB 88.2GB,88.2GB
F: G: as 93.1,93.1 for data
200GB USB2 for Acronis Images (backups)
Borge Pedersen :-)
Perth, Australia
mailto:[email protected]
remove SPAM and underlines for email
 
nesredep egrob said:
OK - so you have established that the secondary has nothing to do with it
- when you close down, do you see a pause where the computer tell you it
is saving your settings?]
Click to expand...

The first time I changed it... I don't know. But now it does prompt
the "Saving your personnal settings" or something like that. It doesn't
stay very long however.

If not I should go back to the backup that you have on some external drive
somewhere in your office - maybe even the very first one, like the one I
call 'skeleton'
Click to expand...

Erm... I have no backup since it did that trick to me a few hours after I
had finished installing W2K. In fact I was finalizing the installation
(i.e. apply fixes, check security on folders, fix the everyone/full control
on sensible folders, configure my desktop and explorer, install and
configure my favorite applications and tools, configure Apache, configure
PHP, configure my IDE, download and install add-ons, stuff like that, which
invariably take hours or days the very first time...) And after that I
changed the drive letters (just forgot to do it in the first place :( ). So
I have no backup. Yet...

Vince C.
 
nesredep egrob said:
OK - so you have established that the secondary has nothing to do with it
- when you close down, do you see a pause where the computer tell you it
is saving your settings?]
Click to expand...

The first time I changed it... I don't know. But now it does prompt
the "Saving your personnal settings" or something like that. It doesn't
stay very long however.

If not I should go back to the backup that you have on some external drive
somewhere in your office - maybe even the very first one, like the one I
call 'skeleton'
Click to expand...

Erm... I have no backup since it did that trick to me a few hours after I
had finished installing W2K. In fact I was finalizing the installation
(i.e. apply fixes, check security on folders, fix the everyone/full control
on sensible folders, configure my desktop and explorer, install and
configure my favorite applications and tools, configure Apache, configure
PHP, configure my IDE, download and install add-ons, stuff like that, which
invariably take hours or days the very first time...) And after that I
changed the drive letters (just forgot to do it in the first place :( ). So
I have no backup. Yet...

Vince C.
Click to expand...
With that much trouble, I should want to re-install the system again, complete
with SP4. Now do not connect to the internet under any circumstances until you
have SP4, a scanner like AVG and a firewall like Zone Alarm up and running. You
can of course download those while the computer is a mess.
There is one thing though - you do not seem to have had a display of the make -
up of your computer to let us know what you really have, like this:

For your information, my stats are:
Win 2000, Pentium IV 3Ghz
1 Gb memory, ADSL via Router DSL 504G
200+200 GB disks partitioned C:D:E;as 9.76GB 88.2GB,88.2GB
F: G: as 93.1,93.1 for data
320GB USB2 for Acronis Images (backups)
Borge Pedersen :-)
Perth, Australia
mailto:[email protected]
remove SPAM and underlines for email
 
nesredep egrob <Long. -31,48.21 Lat. 115,47.40> wrote:

....
With that much trouble, I should want to re-install the system again,
complete with SP4.
Click to expand...

Hmmm... I didn't say it but I've reinstalled W2K nearly half a dozen times -
not for that problem though - but I'm slightly starting to go fed up of
reinstalling... If you know what I mean. What buzzes me also is for every
single unsolvable problem you have to reinstall. Everything.

Now do not connect to the internet under any
circumstances until you have SP4, [...]
Click to expand...

Erm... It's already a W2K with SP4 slip-streamed onto the installation CD...

There is one thing though - you do not seem to have
had a display of the make - up of your computer to let us know what you
really have, like this:
Click to expand...
....

Sure, I have, two posts ago (July 10th, 19:02):
My virtual machine specs are:
Core2 Duo (T5600) @ 1.83GHz [with VM extensions (VT)]
384MB RAM
Master HD (VBox HardDisk): 10 GB
Chipset: 82xxx
Click to expand...

Added, if I was not clear in my original post: this (W2K/SP4) is a virtual
machine that runs under VirtualBox 1.4 on a Gentoo Linux 64-bit laptop. The
guest (W2K/SP4) machine see the host processor as if it were running
directly on it. Hence I get exactly the same as if I had installed W2K on a
Core2 Duo w/ VMX hardware. But that's only for the CPU. All other resources
(i.e. I/O) are virtual resources.

Vince C.
 
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