I'm 67 and dumb about computers and it seems that a software program has installed virtual cd drives on my machine. This has caused the letters to change and all my shortcuts now don't work. How can I find the diskmgmt.msc that is spoken of in the faq. Also how can I delete the virtual drives? Is there a way to asign the drive letters so that they will be permanent so that this won't happen again. Thanks for the help

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I'm not sure about safely removing the vir. drives, but you should able to reassign the drive letters. Change the vir. drives first then change the other drives back to the old letters. Right Click on My Computer, Click on Manage, find Disk Management, then right click on the drives you want to change and choose the change drive letter and paths, and click Change, and click on the letter drop down menu to pick new letter, click OK. Do that for each drive you want to change.


On Sunday, July 6, 2003 at 3:10 pm, Richard Matthews wrote:
>I'm 67 and dumb about computers and it seems that a software program has installed
>virtual cd drives on my machine. This has caused the letters to change and all my
>shortcuts now don't work. How can I find the diskmgmt.msc that is spoken of in the
>faq. Also how can I delete the virtual drives? Is there a way to asign the drive
>letters so that they will be permanent so that this won't happen again. Thanks for
>the help

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

From the Start menu, select Run then type in diskmgmt.msc 
then press enter
You should delete the Virtual Drives in the Vitual drive program, it is a very useful 
program IF you use it. Obviously if you don't use it, it should be removed. 

In Diskmgmt you can permanently reassign most drive letters, but not the boot drive.






On Sunday, July 6, 2003 at 3:10 pm, Richard Matthews wrote:
>I'm 67 and dumb about computers and it seems that a software program has installed 
>virtual cd drives on my machine. This has caused the letters to change and all my 
>shortcuts now don't work. How can I find the diskmgmt.msc that is spoken of in the 
>faq. Also how can I delete the virtual drives? Is there a way to asign the drive 
>letters so that they will be permanent so that this won't happen again. Thanks for 
>the help

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Try the following steps: 1. Right click on an empty spot on the task bar 2. Click Properties 3. Select the Start Menu Tab 4. Select Custumize 5. Select the Advance Tab In the start menu items list scroll down to Systems Administration Tools and check mark your display choice. Then OK, again OK. Click the Start button, slect Administrative Tools then Computer Management. In Computer Management select Disk Management, right click on the drive that you want to change letters and follow the program instructions.


On Sunday, July 6, 2003 at 3:10 pm, Richard Matthews wrote:
>I'm 67 and dumb about computers and it seems that a software program has installed
>virtual cd drives on my machine. This has caused the letters to change and all my
>shortcuts now don't work. How can I find the diskmgmt.msc that is spoken of in the
>faq. Also how can I delete the virtual drives? Is there a way to asign the drive
>letters so that they will be permanent so that this won't happen again. Thanks for
>the help

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Thanks for all the help I have changed the drive letters back and have made notes on how to do this if it happens again. cdwin put a drive there and when I deleted the program the drive went with it. Thats a shame that they would have a program that does that without you asking. Now I will look for getting rid of the welcome window. It just started putting an icon with my name on it to have to click to start windows. Never before was it doing this. Just after installing cdwin. Again Thanks to all that answered my question.


On Sunday, July 6, 2003 at 3:23 pm, sTeve wrote:
>I'm not sure about safely removing the vir. drives, but you should able to reassign
>the drive letters. Change the
>vir. drives first then change the other drives back to
>the old letters. Right Click on My Computer, Click on
>Manage, find Disk Management, then right click on the
>drives you want to change and choose the change drive letter and paths, and click
>Change, and click on
>the letter drop down menu to pick new letter, click OK.
>Do that for each drive you want to change.
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Your Welcome


On Sunday, July 6, 2003 at 4:46 pm, Richard Matthews wrote:
>Thanks for all the help I have changed the drive letters back and have made notes
>on how to do this if it happens again. cdwin put a drive there and when I deleted
>the program the drive went with it. Thats a shame that they would have a program
>that does that without you asking. Now I will look for getting rid of the welcome
>window. It just started putting an icon with my name on it to have to click to start
>windows. Never before was it doing this. Just after installing cdwin. Again Thanks
>to all that answered my question.
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

One tip.

anything the ends in .msc (like for instance diskmgmt.msc) can be run from the "Run..." option in the start menu.

Click on Start, then Run then type diskmgmt.msc in the window that appears and hit enter.

works for anything like that, services.msc is another example, and one I use often.


On Sunday, July 6, 2003 at 3:10 pm, Richard Matthews wrote:
>I'm 67 and dumb about computers and it seems that a software program has installed
>virtual cd drives on my machine. This has caused the letters to change and all my
>shortcuts now don't work. How can I find the diskmgmt.msc that is spoken of in the
>faq. Also how can I delete the virtual drives? Is there a way to asign the drive
>letters so that they will be permanent so that this won't happen again. Thanks for
>the help

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Thanks I got it done.


On Monday, July 7, 2003 at 3:10 pm, Magician wrote:
>One tip.
>

>anything the ends in .msc (like for instance diskmgmt.msc) can be run from the "Run..."
>option in the start menu.
>

>Click on Start, then Run then type diskmgmt.msc in the window that appears and hit
>enter.
>

>works for anything like that, services.msc is another example, and one I use often.
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

This is really simple. Go to administrative tools, computer management. Storage and select Disk management and change the drive letters. http://www.cae.wisc.edu/fsg/winxp/cd-rom.html

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I've done this to my cdroms (made them M&N for various reasons) and XP changes them back to the next free drives (G & H) whenever I restart the machine. Aaargh! Any ideas?


On Sunday, July 6, 2003 at 3:10 pm, Richard Matthews wrote:
>I'm 67 and dumb about computers and it seems that a software program has installed
>virtual cd drives on my machine. This has caused the letters to change and all my
>shortcuts now don't work. How can I find the diskmgmt.msc that is spoken of in the
>faq. Also how can I delete the virtual drives? Is there a way to asign the drive
>letters so that they will be permanent so that this won't happen again. Thanks for
>the help

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

SAme thing happens to me, I want my DVD drives to be Y and Z, but when I reboot then XP Pro reverts them to J and K. And, once I put the DVD drives back to Y and Z using Disk Management, I cannot use J and K for anything else, which I want to do but XP Pro won't let me. Windows 2000 did it fine, no problems, but XP seems very poor by comparison in this. David


On Wednesday, November 26, 2003 at 6:42 pm, Chase wrote:
>I've done this to my cdroms (made them M&N for various reasons) and XP changes them
>back to the next free drives (G & H) whenever I restart the machine. Aaargh!
>
>Any ideas?
>
>
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

That's odd. I've build quite a number of 2k and XP Pro boxes and have never had that problem. One of the first tweaks I do after install is to change CD/DVD to drive X: and burner to drive Y: Never seen them revert back after a reboot.


On Wednesday, January 28, 2004 at 4:02 am, David K wrote:
>SAme thing happens to me, I want my DVD drives to be Y and Z, but when I reboot then
>XP Pro reverts them to J and K. And, once I put the DVD drives back to Y and Z using
>Disk Management, I cannot use J and K for anything else, which I want to do but XP
>Pro won't let me.
>
>Windows 2000 did it fine, no problems, but XP seems very poor by comparison in this.
>
>David
>
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Yeah, I'm having the same problem. It keeps putting my CD-ROM drives as E:, F:, and G:, and my USB hard drive as H:! Every time I reboot it changes them back. I want my hard drives as C:, D:, and E: and my CD-ROMs as like U:, V:, and W: or something like that. I've even tried changing it in the registry as directed on the microsoft site. It's driving me insane! HELP!!!


On Wednesday, November 26, 2003 at 6:42 pm, Chase wrote:
>I've done this to my cdroms (made them M&N for various reasons) and XP changes them
>back to the next free drives (G & H) whenever I restart the machine. Aaargh!
>
>Any ideas?
>
>
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I have the same issue, has anyone come up with a PERMANENT solution to this as yet. I have built 1000's of XP machines and never had this happen, and this issue is happening on my home PC. Thanks in advance


On Sunday, May 30, 2004 at 12:29 pm, Tim wrote:
>
>Yeah, I'm having the same problem. It keeps putting my CD-ROM drives as E:, F:,
>and G:, and my USB hard drive as H:! Every time I reboot it changes them back.
>I want my hard drives as C:, D:, and E: and my CD-ROMs as like U:, V:, and W: or
>something like that. I've even tried changing it in the registry as directed on
>the microsoft site. It's driving me insane! HELP!!!
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I had the same problem. I think it's fixed. Drive letters have held for 4 reboots.
1.  I changed the bios to not autodetect the drives .
     This did not seem to fix the problem.
2. From device manager I deleted the CD drives and 
    rebooted.

SEEMS FIXED  maybe it was the combination of changes







On Sunday, June 20, 2004 at 5:20 pm, Craig Keegan wrote:

>I have the same issue, has anyone come up with a PERMANENT solution to this as yet. 

> I have built 1000's of XP machines and never had this happen, and this issue is 

>happening on my home PC.

>

>Thanks in advance

>

>

> 

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Same problem for me. Just built a Terminator 2 machine from ASUS, very nice machine by the way, with a Pentium Celeron 2400 and installed XP PRO SP1. The T2 has a built in bay with 4 USB card readers (for all kind of photo camera memories - Compact Flash, SD, etc). What happened is during the Windows installation it set the Boot HD as H: while C:, D:, E: and F: was set to the card readers. It is simply impossible to change the H: back as C: since it is the boot volume. The recomendation from the technical guy from where I bought the machine is to disconnect the cable to the small electronic board (card readers) to disable it, and reboot. Didn't help. His new suggestion is to format again the HD and install windows with the card readres cable disconnected, so Windows will set the HD as C:... hmmm, lets try, but I wish it would have an easier way... By the way, all other sort of attempts were tried; disable at hardware configuration on control panel - system, tried to change Drive Letter at Right Click my computer - Management (can't do it for boot volume).


On Saturday, July 3, 2004 at 1:15 pm, Dennis Pearson wrote:
>I had the same problem. I think it's fixed. Drive letters have held for 4 reboots.
>1. I changed the bios to not autodetect the drives .
> This did not seem to fix the problem.
>2. From device manager I deleted the CD drives and
> rebooted.
>
>SEEMS FIXED maybe it was the combination of changes
>
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Thank you so much,your information was very helpful, so clear and easy to understand I solved my problem right away.


On Monday, July 7, 2003 at 3:10 pm, Magician wrote:
>One tip.
>

>anything the ends in .msc (like for instance diskmgmt.msc) can be run from the "Run..."
>option in the start menu.
>

>Click on Start, then Run then type diskmgmt.msc in the window that appears and hit
>enter.
>

>works for anything like that, services.msc is another example, and one I use often.
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Okay. Me too. New XP SP2. New Shuttle case and Nvidia chipset . One hard drive and one DVD-RW. Windows maps the primary hard drice to F:. After the first install I use disk management to change the drive letters of the DVD and media card readers to H,I,R from C,D,E. Then reinstalled the OS without re-formatting. After the second install the hard drive is at C. This is the second identical computer I have had to do this on. Really stinks.


On Monday, June 13, 2005 at 3:49 pm, Carlos Cavenago wrote:
>Thank you so much,your information was very helpful, so clear and easy to understand
>I solved my problem right away.
>
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hi mate, I have similar problems to you which I finally worked out a good solution to!! I boot off U320 SCSI drives and Windows gets mixed up with some SATA drives I have on motherboard headers. They end up being assigned as the system drives. I think Windows likes to use IDE drives for booting off or PCI slots with a low(er) number. My SCSI drives are assigned 'virtual' slot 9 as they are off motherboard headers which is quite high :-)... The tricks I have found which would be much easier for everyone with Windows drive letter/system disk problems are: 1) Disable the devices which are causing offence in the BIOS while booting (e.g. secondary bootable disk controller). 2) Make sure that IDE CD/DVD drives are plugged into the SECONDARY IDE channel as MASTER (1 optical drive) or MASTER+SLAVE (2 optical drives) not the PRIMARY IDE channel. USB is good for booting. 3) An IDE boot disk will work best if it is connected to the PRIMARY IDE channel as a MASTER. 4) Do not use the PRIMARY IDE channel at all if you want to boot off a SATA or SCSI drive. You then re-enable the any additional HD Host Controllers when Windows is installed with simple BIOS switches... NB you will only get conflicts with HD Controllers which are bootable (and hence should have a boot BIOS to turn them off!!) Bobs your Uncle :-) Hope that helps, Bob Wya

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I am having this problem as well.  See my post on 24Aug06.  Did you ever find a resolution 
to your problem.

Steve B.







On Thursday, June 9, 2005 at 12:06 pm, Wagner wrote:

>Same problem for me.

>Just built a Terminator 2 machine from ASUS, very nice machine by the way, with 
a 

>Pentium Celeron 2400 and installed XP PRO SP1.  The T2 has a built in bay with 4 

>USB card readers (for all kind of photo camera memories - Compact Flash, SD, etc). 

>What happened is during the Windows installation it set the Boot HD as H: while 
C:, 

>D:, E: and F: was set to the card readers.  It is simply impossible to change the 

>H: back as C: since it is the boot volume.  The recomendation from the technical 

>guy from where I bought the machine is to disconnect the cable to the small electronic 

>board (card readers) to disable it, and reboot. Didn't help.  His new suggestion 

>is to format again the HD and install windows with the card readres cable disconnected, 

>so Windows will set the HD as C:... hmmm, lets try, but I wish it would have an 
easier 

>way...  By the way, all other sort of attempts were tried; disable at hardware configuration 

>on control panel - system, tried to change Drive Letter at Right Click my computer 

>- Management (can't do it for boot volume).

>

>

> 

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I had the same problem with card readers coming up with drive letters before those 
of hard drives when I built a new PC recently. 

I found that the problem was solved by setting the Plug & Play OS setting in the 
BIOS before installing Windows. It seems odd that this wasn't set by default as modern 
operating systems (which most people will be installing in a new machine) support 
Plug & Play.

The impression I got from the manual that came with the motherboard was that if this 
option isn't set, the BIOS will detect all storage devices itself. It seems that 
it detects USB-connected storage devices (such as my card readers) before IDE/SATA 
drives and the OS then uses them in the detected order. If this option is set, the 
BIOS detects IDE/SATA drives (which it needs in order to boot the OS) but leaves 
detecting USB storage devices to the OS. Consequently, the hard drives are detected 
and assigned drive letters first, which is what we want. 

Hope this helps.

However, I also have the problem with changes to the CD/DVD drive letter not sticking. 
I like it set to Z, so it doesn't change if I add hard drives. Windows (XP SP2b) 
reverts it to E every time I reboot. Quite annoying and I've not yet found a solution.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I have created a script file and batch file to "get around" the drive letter changing,
BUT be warned that you must always have the same things connected or disconnected 
after startup else it will not fuction correctly.
get the command prompt up and type as below (there is a return or enter to create 
a new line):- 
diskpart
list volumes

Then make a note of all the volume NUMBERS and the assigned drive letters. Do this 
after startup and before you mess with anything!
Once you have these details crate a file in notepad called "driveassign" 
(make sure you save as "all files" so there is no file extension in c:\
In this type (as an example and what I've got in mine) as below:-
select volume 1
remove letter=H
assign letter=Z
select volume 2
remove letter=I
assign letter=Y
exit

Then create another file in notepad called "diskassign.bat again when saving save 
to the c:\ and as "all files" 
so that the file is called diskassign.bat
In this file type:-
diskpart /s c:\driveassign
save the file as above.
Then make a shortcut of this file and place it on the desktop.
So forevermore all you have to do once system has booted and startup has finnished 
is doubleclick the shortcut.





On Monday, January 29, 2007 at 6:09 pm, Paul wrote:

>I had the same problem with card readers coming up with drive letters before those 

>of hard drives when I built a new PC recently. 

>

>I found that the problem was solved by setting the Plug & Play OS setting in the 

>BIOS before installing Windows. It seems odd that this wasn't set by default as 
modern 

>operating systems (which most people will be installing in a new machine) support 

>Plug & Play.

>

>The impression I got from the manual that came with the motherboard was that if 
this 

>option isn't set, the BIOS will detect all storage devices itself. It seems that 

>it detects USB-connected storage devices (such as my card readers) before IDE/SATA 

>drives and the OS then uses them in the detected order. If this option is set, the 

>BIOS detects IDE/SATA drives (which it needs in order to boot the OS) but leaves 

>detecting USB storage devices to the OS. Consequently, the hard drives are detected 

>and assigned drive letters first, which is what we want. 

>

>Hope this helps.

>

>However, I also have the problem with changes to the CD/DVD drive letter not sticking. 

>I like it set to Z, so it doesn't change if I add hard drives. Windows (XP SP2b) 

>reverts it to E every time I reboot. Quite annoying and I've not yet found a solution. 

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hi ,
I've just played about some more and noticed that there was an error in the last 
entry I wrote
after diskpart you type "list volume" - without the quotes and not "list volumes"
ALSO you do not need to "remove letter=H" you can just "assign letter=Z" as in the 
example previous.
Therefore my previous  example would be :-
select volume 1
assign letter=Z
select volume 2
assign letter=Y
exit


Yours...
Chris2var




On Wednesday, February 21, 2007 at 12:27 pm, Chris2var wrote:

>I have created a script file and batch file to "get around" the drive letter changing,

>BUT be warned that you must always have the same things connected or disconnected 

>after startup else it will not fuction correctly.

>get the command prompt up and type as below (there is a return or enter to create 

>a new line):- 

>diskpart

>list volumes

>

>Then make a note of all the volume NUMBERS and the assigned drive letters. Do this 

>after startup and before you mess with anything!

>Once you have these details crate a file in notepad called "driveassign" 

>(make sure you save as "all files" so there is no file extension in c:\

>In this type (as an example and what I've got in mine) as below:-

>select volume 1

>remove letter=H

>assign letter=Z

>select volume 2

>remove letter=I

>assign letter=Y

>exit

>

>Then create another file in notepad called "diskassign.bat again when saving save 

>to the c:\ and as "all files" 

>so that the file is called diskassign.bat

>In this file type:-

>diskpart /s c:\driveassign

>save the file as above.

>Then make a shortcut of this file and place it on the desktop.

>So forevermore all you have to do once system has booted and startup has finnished 

>is doubleclick the shortcut.

> 

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I found this thread after having trouble getting the DVD-RAM drive on my new ThinkPad 
assigned to something other than the D: drive.  Using the aforementioned Computer 
Management applet, I changed the DVD-RAM drive to R:, but it would never survive 
a reboot.  I tried starting up in Safe Mode, but this didn't help.  Then, some direction 
took me to the Device Manager, and I found a system device that was malfunctioning. 
 There was a duplicate of the device that was functioning properly, so I uninstalled 
the malfunctioning one.  Reboot, and voilà!  After the restart, the DVD-RAM drive 
was assigned to R:, and my network share assigned to D:!  I still have to see if 
it will survive a powerdown and restart, but I'm hopeful this solves the problem.

Take-away for others trying to solve this:  Check your Device Manager to see if there 
are any devices that need attention, and resolve them as necessary.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

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