Scrambled drive letter assignments in XP

[jimcole]

I was 10 minutes away from finishing a 10 day new computer build project and suddenly I get a major problem.

I have a P5B Deluxe Wi-Fi MB with a three drive Raid 5 array (WD RE2 500GB) and three non-Raid 74 GB Raptors. Using 0804 bios on the MB and Intel Matrix Storage Manager for the Raid and non-Raid disk setup. Using Win XP SP2 with all current updates.

All was working fine...Raid and non-Raid disks, software installation went smoothly. I think I caused a problem when I tried to move the My Documents folder from the root C: drive to the Raid array I:

Anyway, after some trouble with that, I decided to restore the My Docs folder to C:

Now, looking in Windows Explorer I see that the Raid Array is listed twice as the original drive letter I: and now J: Both show complete file structures.

The rest of the drive letters look fine until I go to the Windows Disk Management tool where all the drive letter assignments are missing (C:, D:, G:, H: ) from all the HDDs except for the Raid array which is listed as J: only.

No Windows restore points will take. Drive C: has been Disk Checked and found to be fine.

Acronis Disk Director can not see any HDDs at all.

All installed programs function perfectly.

My guess is that the Registry file has been corrupted and I have no idea how to fix it, if indeed this is the problem.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Jim

FOLLOW UP: I succeeded in getting rid of the second drive letter on the Raid array by simply deleting the drive letter J: in the Disk Management tool. Now Explorer shows all as it should be, with all drives properly labled. However, I still have no drive letter designations in the Disk Management screen and the Acronis software can still not find any HDDs. Every time I boot up as XP starts to load, a blue screen comes up suggesting a Disk Check of I: (the Raid array). It all checks out fine and XP loads. But it does it every time I reboot.

I still need some help.

 

[jimcole]

FOLLOWUP #2:

I found a DOS utility called Chkntfs.exe which showed the I: drive (Raid-5) to be dirty. I then used chkdsk in DOS usinfg the /r and /f options and it found and repaired a bad cluster on the drive where the restore points are stored. Interesting that the boot version of the chkdsk never found or repaired this like the DOS version did.

Now when I boot, I do not get the automatic chkdsk on I: every time so that's one problem fixed. I also ran the IMSM repair and verify volume data on the Raid array and it showed the array to have no problems.

Now I get a clean boot and all except two software packages (mentioned below) work just fine, but I still show the following problems:

1) Tried to restore the computer to several points from a day or two ago and none will work. Windows is unable to restore to any poit it seems...maybe the bad cluster on I:

2) The Computer Management/Disk Fragmenter screen still shows a duplicate entry of the Raid Array although with no drive letter assigned. All other drives shown are shown correctly with their respective drive letters.

3) The Computer Management/Disk Management screen shows all the proper drives (no duplicate entry of the Raid array) but none of the drives are assigned any letters. Trying to assign leters within the utility will not work because all letters below J: are not available since it knows these letters have already properly been assigned.

4) My two Acronis softare packages (Disk Director Suite 10.0 and True Image 10.0) that worked until Thursday morning, can not find any installed drives.

I will work a bit more on this this morning and then I will try restoring a boot drive ghost I made on Tuesday and then go from there.