C drive called D drive?

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by shanrene123, Jan 23, 2005.

  1. shanrene123

    shanrene123 Private First Class

    My hard drive is called "D" instead of "C". I am having problems using downloaded programs such as Ad-Aware and Spybot. After I download them onto my hard drive, when I try to run them, I get an error message that says something like, "cannot locate hard disk", and then I cannot cancel out of this box unless I push Ctrl, Alt, Delete several times. My printer is my C drive, and I have tried unhooking it and restarting, with no luck. With it unhooked, I went into the BIOS and restored defaults, without luck there either. What I would like to do is to change my hard drive from my D drive to my C drive, and vise versa with my printer. I also have difficulty when I run scans at PC Pitstop, and finally figured out that I have to do a "Custom Scan" there of my D drive. I run Windows XP SP2. Hope this is understandable. :rolleyes: Can anyone help? Thanks in advance! I love your Website!
     
  2. Turcoloco

    Turcoloco MajorGeek

    This is a first for me but unless someone knows what is going on, let me ask you a few questions to get things rolling:

    1) What did you do/too place on your computer (installed, uninstalled software/hardware, etc.) prior the problem?

    2) How do you see that the HardDisk is D not C?

    3) How do you know your printer is drive D? What kind of connection does the printer use? (Print devices do not use drive letters so this is odd as is)

    4) What does it show in 'My Computer' for the drives on your system?

    5) if you right-click 'My Computer' then 'Manage' then click on 'Disk Management', what do you see?
     
  3. shanrene123

    shanrene123 Private First Class

    I installed an HP 2175v all-in-one printer, scanner, and copier which also has media readers, is connected with a USB port. When I go to "My Computer", it shows my hard drive as drive D, my printer as drive C (possibly because of the media readers), drive A as floppy, drives E&F as CD & DVD drives. In disk management, it shows my hard drive as D as well. Hope this helps some. I will be offline for a while, but will be back on later this evening. Thanks so very much!
     
  4. noahawk

    noahawk Corporal

    I once worked on a laptop and I was using a USB flash drive to load the drivers from, and XP put the USB drive as C and the hard drive a D. I think this time I just left it plugged in when rebooting - and the laptop detected it before the hard drive and gave it "C". The same thing happens with networked drives and usb flash drives on our Novell computers at work. If the drive is plugged in before the network drive is mapped, the usb gets the earlier letter, otherwise the network drive gets that letter and the memory stick isn't recognized, until we come set the correct drive letter (I think because XP can't figure out to give it the next drive letter available?) Since I had just put XP on it, and I couldn't get XP to make the hard drive C again, I reinstalled Windows.

    Before I recommend that, have you tried unplugging the printer and rebooting? Check what letter XP gives the hard drive then.
     
  5. Triaxx2

    Triaxx2 MajorGeek

    Windows automatically assigns a drive letter to card readers. It shouldn't put them in advance of hard drives though. Any one want to help him?
     
  6. shanrene123

    shanrene123 Private First Class

    I unplugged my printer and restarted the computer -- no change. I even uninstalled my printer software programs and restarted -- still no change. I tried to mess around in device manager some, tried a few things there, but wasn't sure what to really do. Nothing there helped either. Does anyone know how to change my hard drive back to C, without completly reinstalling Windows without my printer attached? Or should I just keep my hard drive as D, and can I bipass some of the trouble I'm having running programs like Ad-aware and Spybot? Thanks to everyone in advance! :)
     
  7. Turcoloco

    Turcoloco MajorGeek

    Very interesting and odd at the same time, a memory card reader that comes with a Printer would still be recognized as a "removeable storage' by XP, but in your case it somehow bumped the OS root drive to D, I didn't even know that the System Partition could be moved because assigning a new drive letter using Disk Management utility would not be possible since it would cause problem starting with boot...weird.

    Ok do me a favor and open the Disk Management panel again and see if you can change the drive letter of Printer/Memory reader unit from C to something else (possibly the next available drive, G).
    Whether you can do it or not before rebooting to test anything, do this:
    Start > Run > type regedit > OK
    Once the registry editor opens up, expanding the hives/registry branches on the left hand side, browse down to these location and check the values on the right hand side that I am going to list:

    1) LEFT: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup

    RIGHT list:
    BootDir > check what Drive letter is listed as its value.
    Installation Sources > check what Drive letter is listed as its value.

    2) LEFT:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

    RIGHT list:
    PathName > check what Drive letter is listed as its value.
    SystemRoot > check what Drive letter is listed as its value.

    Repost and let me know, I will try to figure out a solution if not a workaround. I will be on the road tomorrow but I will try to check back in the evening.

    PS. if someone got a certain solution by all means jump in cause I am not 100% as to what the cause is.
     
  8. shanrene123

    shanrene123 Private First Class

    Turcoloco,
    I checked what you suggested in Registry Editor. Everything's source is the D:\ drive, except Installation Sources which is E:\

    Thanks so much for your time! Have a good day today.

    I appreciate everyone's assistance!
     
  9. shanrene123

    shanrene123 Private First Class

    Hey, can anyone else help? Would I be best to just leave my hard drive as D? I am considering doing that. Hope everyone's had a good day! thanks, Shannon :)
     
  10. ~Pyrate~

    ~Pyrate~ MajorGeek

    I used to have a windows 2000 setup where the boot drive was D ... and some programs wouldn't work or acted funnny ... this was because Windows wants C as the boot drive and (i forget the techie terms here but ill wing it:p) since my boot drive was not *physically* located at the first sector of the HDD (that first sector is normally shown as C in windows) ... I tried changing the name via the comp manager but it was a no go ... the only thing that worked was a full reinstall and putting the boot drive at the first physical sector
     
  11. shanrene123

    shanrene123 Private First Class

    If I save all my stuff onto CD's and floppy's and reinstalled Windows XP in the same Partition, without the printer hooked up, do you all think that would correct the problem, and that the hard drive would be recognized as C instead of D? I hate to do that, but it seems that is my only option from the info you all have given me so far. If anyone has anymore suggestions, they would be much appreciated. Thanks to all for your time & help! ;)
     
  12. Turcoloco

    Turcoloco MajorGeek

    Hi, just got logged on from the hotel room :rolleyes: , ok appearently the multi-function printer caused the boot drive to change from C to D but only half way since I am certain the boot files are still on the C drive and also the fact that some of your applications do not work is because simply in the registry they are still pointing to C:\Program Files\.... instead now it is D:\Program Files\....

    Would you be better of clean slate re-installing everything after a full format? Possibly so but no guarantee that the same situation might occur again after you plug in the multi-function printer and install its drivers.

    What can you try?
    As I suggested before, try opening the Disk Management console and see if you can change the drive letter for the printer/removeable drive from C to G (or whatever else is available), see if the system even enables you to do so.
    If so after changing it and before rebooting, make sure you go in to:
    Right-click 'My Computer' > click on 'Advanced' > 'Settings' under Startup and Recovery > 'Edit' button to open the Boot.ini file in notepad window and make sure the boot path shows: default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)....partition(1) meaning the boot files are located on the first partition which would be C.

    Another way to check and verify the boot path being valid or not (which is probably easier):
    Start > Run > type msconfig > OK > click on the 'BOOT.INI' tab > and finally click on 'Check all boot paths' and it should read something like 'It appears that all BOOT.INI lines for Microsoft operating systems are OK'. That means you are good to reboot.

    If you try ( and please do) but not able to change the Drive letters in Disk Management console then try this for all non-working applications (write down their names so you are ready to fix them all in same session).
    Now, ready?
    Click on Start then Run and type regedit, once the registry editor window opens up, using the hives/folders on the left hand side expand and browse down to:
    \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\
    all you installed apps should appear here (may be under the name of the vendor that developed them), once you locate a non working software and examine the related paths for the program on the right and if any of them is pointing to C:\... simply change the letter to D and you are done.

    but sometimes a program is installed just for the currently logged user or simply configured under the CURRENT_USER hive per design which is the case for Spybot Search&Destroy, so if you do not see the non-working programs in the open location the other location you would have to check to change its drive path would be:
    \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\

    let me explain a bit more using Spybot as an example:
    After opening the registry, expand and browse down to:
    \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\PepiMK Software\SpybotSnD

    now on the left hand side located these values on the list:
    'Path' and 'ResultsDir' and change the drive letter at the beginning of the data from C to D, so instead of C:\Program Files\Spybot - Search & Destroy\ it will show D:\Program Files\Spybot - Search & Destroy\
    That is it, you would pretty much have to do this with all applications that are not working. If this helps then I'd not recommend messing around with the system too much.... ;)
     
  13. shanrene123

    shanrene123 Private First Class

    Hello All! A big thanks to everyone for all your assistance with my problem! Turcoloco, I tried everything you suggested, and even though my hard drive is still called D and my printer is now changed to G, all of my software programs are now working without any problems. In Disk Management, I tried to change the D drive back to C, but Windows wouldn't allow me to change my boot drive. Yet all is well, because everything is working just fine. Thanks again for all of your time & input! ;) Stay safe out there!

    Respectfully,
    Shannon
     
  14. Solange

    Solange Sergeant Major


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