Why is my SATA drive (OS installed) labeled E: and my secondary IDE is C: ?

[jinduy]

i installed the sata drive with xp first without the ide attached. then i installed the ide drive after i got windows installed... it shifts the sata drive over to E:... why is that and how do i rseolve it to c:?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

You should be able to change the IDE drive in disk management. I don't think you can change the letter of the OS drive while in Windows though... maybe once the IDE is set to a different letter the SATA will default back to C though.

Not sure on why this would happen, never used a SATA drive myself.

 

[Synomenon]

Make sure your IDE drive doesn't have a jumper set to master.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: IsLNdbOi
Make sure your IDE drive doesn't have a jumper set to master.

What should it be set to?

 

[Synomenon]

Try cable select.

 

[FlyingPenguin]

The IDE is first in the detection list when Windows scans the system for drives, SATA or any other controllers are secondary, so XP is likely to make the IDE drive the C drive.

You can force the issue in a clean install by doing the install with ONLY the SATA drive connected. Then connect the IDE drive after Windows is installed.

If you've already installed Windows you can change the IDE drive's letter, but you can't easily change your boot drive's letter (it can be done but I wouldn't recommend it).

 

[Jiggz]

Originally posted by: FlyingPenguin
The IDE is first in the detection list when Windows scans the system for drives, SATA or any other controllers are secondary, so XP is likely to make the IDE drive the C drive.

You can force the issue in a clean install by doing the install with ONLY the SATA drive connected. Then connect the IDE drive after Windows is installed.

If you've already installed Windows you can change the IDE drive's letter, but you can't easily change your boot drive's letter (it can be done but I wouldn't recommend it).

He said that's what he did. Clean installed WinXp in the SATA and then connected the IDE. But this is the normal convention of hardware. IDE's, SATA's, Optical and then logical drives. The only way to fix this is to assign a fixed letter either to the IDE or SATA using Disk Management.

 

[jonnyGURU]

AND it's normal for XP to renumber (reletter?) those drives.. Unfortunately.

In MS OS's < XP, C: was whatever the OS was installed on and then the other drives fell into place after the fact. But I've noticed that XP doesn't do this.

My mom has a SATA drive, an PATA drive and a Memory Card bus slot. I installed XP on her SATA drive without the PATA drive plugged in. It assigned the MEMORY CARD READER C through F. Her SATA became G! Get a load of that! Then I installed the PATA drive so I could copy some old stuff over and it became C and the SATA because G. WTF!

I haven't tried relettering them from Disk Managemen. I know you can't do it the old way (through Device Manager.) I'll guess I'll screw with it again when I get the chance.

 

[FlyingPenguin]

XP is an NT OS and all NT OSes have always acted this way. XP assigns in the order of the drive addresses. Fire up Partition Magic or Norton Ghost and you'll see that the IDE drive will be drive #1 and the DATA #2.

There is nothing wrong with having your boot drive be the D drive by the way. Everything will work just fine.

 

[jonnyGURU]

Originally posted by: FlyingPenguin
XP is an NT OS and all NT OSes have always acted this way. XP assigns in the order of the drive addresses. Fire up Partition Magic or Norton Ghost and you'll see that the IDE drive will be drive #1 and the DATA #2.

There is nothing wrong with having your boot drive be the D drive by the way. Everything will work just fine.

I realize that XP is NT based, but I've never had 2000 do this to me. If a drive starts out as C: it stays C. And of course, if it starts out as D, it stay as D regardless of what is added or subtracted after the fact. I think the thng that makes XP different is it will dynamically change the drive letters on a moment's notice. THAT'S what's annoying.

 

[TheLogLady]

It sounds like I followed the same install process you did -- Install XP with only the SATA and optical IDE drives connected, then add the PATA HDD later on. But it's never tried to change my drive letters on me...my SATA stays C: and my PATA stays D:. I wonder if it's due to my SATA drive having a PATA to SATA bridge chip.

 

[homercles337]

I bet its jumpers. I have done exactly what the OP did and i never experienced this problem. Check yo jumpers, i bet your PATA drive is set to master.

 

[jinduy]

Originally posted by: homercles337
I bet its jumpers. I have done exactly what the OP did and i never experienced this problem. Check yo jumpers, i bet your PATA drive is set to master.

that is correct, it is set to master. i thought it was irrelevant because sata drives have no master/slave configs and the bios is supposed to set the priority no?

should i set it to slave or cable select? i will try slave soon..

 

[NateSLC]

Originally posted by: jinduy

Originally posted by: homercles337
I bet its jumpers. I have done exactly what the OP did and i never experienced this problem. Check yo jumpers, i bet your PATA drive is set to master.

that is correct, it is set to master. i thought it was irrelevant because sata drives have no master/slave configs and the bios is supposed to set the priority no?

should i set it to slave or cable select? i will try slave soon..

Don't try slave for the hard drive unless you're setting and connecting something else as master.

Over the years, I've grown tired of this issue, so I make it a point to rename my hard drives with meaningful designations.

Right now, I have:

c: Data
d: Data for Roomies
e: XP 64
j: XP 32
v: Beyond TV

The letters make no sense (except v for my video) but the lables do. So I just look at the labels. The thing that pisses me off is that I can't rename the optical drives. Anyone found a tool for that?