SATA install gone haywire (P4C800-E)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Harold
  • Start date Start date
H

Harold

I did a clean install of WinXP sp1 on a new Maxtor 200 gig SATA drive
(non raid). It is the only drive in my system. The install went fine,
but now the drive is listed as (F:) in Windows Explorer. When I try to
change the drive letter to (C:) I can't because it is the "boot"
drive. Currently the C: and D: drive letters are assigned to my flash
card reader. The E: is assigned to my CDRW drive.
My motherboard (Asus P4C800-E) supports SATA drives and the latest
BIOS is installed.
I guess I could unplug the flash card reader and the CDRW drive and
reboot. Then WinXP will reassign the drive letters? At that point, is
there a way to lock in the letter assignments?
Any advice?
 
I had problems with a flashcard reader also, once I disabled it the install
went fine. P4C800 DLX, 2 Maxtor 120 GB SATA, XP sp1.

MB
 
Harold,

If you can I would recommend re doing the XP install without the flash drive
present.

Changing system drive letters under XP is a problem - the boot / system
drive can become set in concrete once the drive letter is assigned. There is
a method to change it - search support.microsoft.com to find it, but it is
possible you will stuff your system. Once the drive letter is assigned,
sometimes the actual path is recorded in the registry - it is not supposed
to be, the %systemvol% and %systemroot% values are supposed to be used
instead so that if C becomes X then it is automatically mapped at startup as
a new value for the above %...

If you have time, try the MS method then if that fails, do a reinstall.

- Tim
 
Once the drive letter is assigned,
sometimes the actual path is recorded in the registry
Click to expand...

I have successfully searched the registry for strings like F: and changed
them to C: before, but if this is a freash install, I'm sure it will
take less time to disconnect the flash drive, reinstall XP, then
plug the flash back in than to analyze ever occurence of F: in the
registry to see if it should be changed :-).

Of course, you could just leave it F: - XP will work fine (but
thousands of installers written by idiots probably will keep trying
to install things in C: :-).
--email: (e-mail address removed) icbm: Delray Beach, FL |
<URL:http://home.att.net/~Tom.Horsley> Free Software and Politics <<==+
 
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