What happens when more than 26 drives are present?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Talal Itani
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T

Talal Itani

XP assigns letters automatically to drives. What happens when more than 26
drives are present?
 
See the reply in your previous post.

|
| XP assigns letters automatically to drives. What happens when more than
26
| drives are present?
|
|
 
'Talal Itani' wrote:
| XP assigns letters automatically to drives. What happens when more than
26
| drives are present?
_____

Your Windows drivers license is revoked, and you must apply for a heavy
haulers license B^)

Phil Weldon

|
|
|
 
Talal Itani said:
XP assigns letters automatically to drives. What happens when more than 26
drives are present?
Click to expand...


You can have more drives than there are letters in the alphabet...

In XP additional drives can be assigned as folders within an existing drive
 
Since the most powerfull pc power supply is only slightly more than 900watts,
youd never supply the juice for them,plus how would you connect that many...
 
Talal said:
XP assigns letters automatically to drives. What happens when more than 26
drives are present?
Click to expand...

If there is no drive letter availlable then a new drive
just does not get one. As any other drive it is then
still accessible thru its volume name, something like
\\?\Volume{2525d0b8-01de-11dc-b4ef-000102b35cc3}\
For instance the file TEST.TXT in the root folder of
the drive could be accessed thru
\\?\Volume{2525d0b8-01de-11dc-b4ef-000102b35cc3}\TEST.TXT

Normal software does not accept this, but if you write
your own Win32 application this would work.


With a 3rd party software as my USB drive letter manager
you could let mount new drives into NTFS folders. Then
the number of drives is limited by the system ressources
only.
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html


Greetings from Germany

Uwe
 
Uwe said:
With a 3rd party software as my USB drive letter manager
you could let mount new drives into NTFS folders.
Click to expand...

Not to disappoint you, but Windows has this feature built in already
 
jorgen said:
Not to disappoint you, but Windows has this feature built in already
Click to expand...

You can mount manally into NTFS folders but there is definitely
no mechanism build in for mounting drives that appear for the
first time automatically into an NTFS folder.
My software does exactely this if configured that way.


Uwe
 
Let see, while IDE only handles 8, you can put 15 SCSI drives on a
single card, heck, 2 SCSI cards and you have 30 already. Then there is
the USB option. That was pretty easy. And what prevents the user from
multiple power supplies? There are cases outfitted with dual PSU's so
that doesn't appear to be an issue either.
 
Let see, while IDE only handles 8, you can put 15 SCSI drives on a
single card, heck, 2 SCSI cards and you have 30 already. Then there is
the USB option. That was pretty easy. And what prevents the user from
multiple power supplies? There are cases outfitted with dual PSU's so
that doesn't appear to be an issue either.
Click to expand...

And there are external drive cage arrays. We have one server setup with
12 IDE drives using a two Promise SX6000 RAID controllers, works fine,
allows hot swap....

--

Leythos
- Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.
- Calling an illegal alien an "undocumented worker" is like calling a
drug dealer an "unlicensed pharmacist"
(e-mail address removed) (remove 999 for proper email address)
 
Don't forget that it doesn't have to be physical drives. Using an Extended
Partition you could have a large number of Volumes ( Drives w/Letters )
using minimal hardware.
What with current spindle speeds and the heat generated, I'd be reluctant
to have a desktop system with more than 4 physical drives inside it.
 
Since the most powerfull pc power supply is only slightly more than
900watts,
youd never supply the juice for them,plus how would you connect that
many...
Click to expand...

I forgot to say, these are flash ram drives. So, no power problem.
 
Uwe Sieber said:
If there is no drive letter availlable then a new drive
just does not get one. As any other drive it is then
still accessible thru its volume name, something like
\\?\Volume{2525d0b8-01de-11dc-b4ef-000102b35cc3}\
For instance the file TEST.TXT in the root folder of
the drive could be accessed thru
\\?\Volume{2525d0b8-01de-11dc-b4ef-000102b35cc3}\TEST.TXT
Click to expand...

I think this is the solution to my problem. I was not aware that Windows
assigns a volume name to every drive, even drives above letter Z.

I looked at your page regarding USB drive manager, but I was unable to
understand.

Thanks
 
If there is no drive letter availlable then a new drive
just does not get one. As any other drive it is then
still accessible thru its volume name, something like
\\?\Volume{2525d0b8-01de-11dc-b4ef-000102b35cc3}\
For instance the file TEST.TXT in the root folder of
the drive could be accessed thru
\\?\Volume{2525d0b8-01de-11dc-b4ef-000102b35cc3}\TEST.TXT
Click to expand...


Thanks again. How can I find the volume name for a drive? When I go to
drive properties, the name is what the user assigned.
 
Leythos said:
And there are external drive cage arrays. We have one server setup with
12 IDE drives using a two Promise SX6000 RAID controllers, works fine,
allows hot swap....
Click to expand...

With 12 IDE drives, how are they accessed? The IDE spec calls out 4
channels with 2 drives per channel. Or is the external unit handling it
and presenting 2 drives as a single unit?
 
yes, the "logical" drives is an easy one, the physical setup would be
doable, and yes heat would be an issue to be considered.
 
'Bob I' wrote:
| With 12 IDE drives, how are they accessed? The IDE spec calls out 4
| channels with 2 drives per channel. Or is the external unit handling it
| and presenting 2 drives as a single unit?
_____

Twelve drives are accessed in the same way as four or eight drives. Plenty
of motherboards were made with more than one dual channel IDE controller;
not even requiring an adapter card to get up to 8 IDE devices. You can have
as many ATA host controllers as you wish.

Phil Weldon

|
|
| Leythos wrote:
|
| > In article <#[email protected]>, (e-mail address removed)
| > says...
| >
| >>Let see, while IDE only handles 8, you can put 15 SCSI drives on a
| >>single card, heck, 2 SCSI cards and you have 30 already. Then there is
| >>the USB option. That was pretty easy. And what prevents the user from
| >>multiple power supplies? There are cases outfitted with dual PSU's so
| >>that doesn't appear to be an issue either.
| >
| >
| > And there are external drive cage arrays. We have one server setup with
| > 12 IDE drives using a two Promise SX6000 RAID controllers, works fine,
| > allows hot swap....
| >
|
| With 12 IDE drives, how are they accessed? The IDE spec calls out 4
| channels with 2 drives per channel. Or is the external unit handling it
| and presenting 2 drives as a single unit?
|
 
Thanks, I only have the connections for handling 8 and so I went back to
the IDE/ATA specifications.
 
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