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hard drive/drive letter confusion

P

Phil

Flightless Bird
using win xp sp3. installed a new sata hard drive and have a 2nd pata hard
drive.
the sata is 500gb that i parttioned in half. the o/s is on c:, the other
portion is D: and the 2nd hard drive is 160gb and is e:
The o/s system and programs are on c:.
now... for the issue, when i go to my computer and look at the drives
everything is in order.
When i go into disk management it shows as follows
on top as disk 0 (e:)
next as disk 1 on left is D: and on right side is c: (hope i'm being clear)
when i made an image using macrium i made an image of c: and saved to e:
when i look in the folders it shows that. when i tested the macrium from a
boot from cd, it shows the backup is in c: all by itself and if i were to
have to restore i would need to restore to d:
is that because the drives are out of order in the disk management?

thank you, hope i wasn't long winded.
 
P

Pegasus [MVP]

Flightless Bird
"Phil" <Phil@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:822DB486-40BB-4B7C-A535-BB3E39DA0AA0@microsoft.com...
> using win xp sp3. installed a new sata hard drive and have a 2nd pata hard
> drive.
> the sata is 500gb that i parttioned in half. the o/s is on c:, the other
> portion is D: and the 2nd hard drive is 160gb and is e:
> The o/s system and programs are on c:.
> now... for the issue, when i go to my computer and look at the drives
> everything is in order.
> When i go into disk management it shows as follows
> on top as disk 0 (e:)
> next as disk 1 on left is D: and on right side is c: (hope i'm being
> clear)
> when i made an image using macrium i made an image of c: and saved to e:
> when i look in the folders it shows that. when i tested the macrium from a
> boot from cd, it shows the backup is in c: all by itself and if i were to
> have to restore i would need to restore to d:
> is that because the drives are out of order in the disk management?
>
> thank you, hope i wasn't long winded.


Since a picture says more than a thousand words, try this:
1. Open the Disk Manager.
2. Press Alt+PrtSc
3. Open PaintBrush (mspaint.exe)
4. Press Ctrl+V. You should now see a picture of the disk manager.
5. Save the file, then upload it to the public area of www.skydrive.com.
6. Post the link to the picture here.
 
P

Phil

Flightless Bird
C:/Documents and Settings\Karen\My Documents\My Pictures\disk management.bmp
i posted it. is above what you need to access it?
Phil

"Pegasus [MVP]" wrote:

>
>
> "Phil" <Phil@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:822DB486-40BB-4B7C-A535-BB3E39DA0AA0@microsoft.com...
> > using win xp sp3. installed a new sata hard drive and have a 2nd pata hard
> > drive.
> > the sata is 500gb that i parttioned in half. the o/s is on c:, the other
> > portion is D: and the 2nd hard drive is 160gb and is e:
> > The o/s system and programs are on c:.
> > now... for the issue, when i go to my computer and look at the drives
> > everything is in order.
> > When i go into disk management it shows as follows
> > on top as disk 0 (e:)
> > next as disk 1 on left is D: and on right side is c: (hope i'm being
> > clear)
> > when i made an image using macrium i made an image of c: and saved to e:
> > when i look in the folders it shows that. when i tested the macrium from a
> > boot from cd, it shows the backup is in c: all by itself and if i were to
> > have to restore i would need to restore to d:
> > is that because the drives are out of order in the disk management?
> >
> > thank you, hope i wasn't long winded.

>
> Since a picture says more than a thousand words, try this:
> 1. Open the Disk Manager.
> 2. Press Alt+PrtSc
> 3. Open PaintBrush (mspaint.exe)
> 4. Press Ctrl+V. You should now see a picture of the disk manager.
> 5. Save the file, then upload it to the public area of www.skydrive.com.
> 6. Post the link to the picture here.
>
> .
>
 
P

Phil

Flightless Bird
i got it. here it is.
http://cid-b7716b5daf5c24cd.photos.live.com/self.aspx/disk management

"Phil" wrote:

> C:/Documents and Settings\Karen\My Documents\My Pictures\disk management.bmp
> i posted it. is above what you need to access it?
> Phil
>
> "Pegasus [MVP]" wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > "Phil" <Phil@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:822DB486-40BB-4B7C-A535-BB3E39DA0AA0@microsoft.com...
> > > using win xp sp3. installed a new sata hard drive and have a 2nd pata hard
> > > drive.
> > > the sata is 500gb that i parttioned in half. the o/s is on c:, the other
> > > portion is D: and the 2nd hard drive is 160gb and is e:
> > > The o/s system and programs are on c:.
> > > now... for the issue, when i go to my computer and look at the drives
> > > everything is in order.
> > > When i go into disk management it shows as follows
> > > on top as disk 0 (e:)
> > > next as disk 1 on left is D: and on right side is c: (hope i'm being
> > > clear)
> > > when i made an image using macrium i made an image of c: and saved to e:
> > > when i look in the folders it shows that. when i tested the macrium from a
> > > boot from cd, it shows the backup is in c: all by itself and if i were to
> > > have to restore i would need to restore to d:
> > > is that because the drives are out of order in the disk management?
> > >
> > > thank you, hope i wasn't long winded.

> >
> > Since a picture says more than a thousand words, try this:
> > 1. Open the Disk Manager.
> > 2. Press Alt+PrtSc
> > 3. Open PaintBrush (mspaint.exe)
> > 4. Press Ctrl+V. You should now see a picture of the disk manager.
> > 5. Save the file, then upload it to the public area of www.skydrive.com.
> > 6. Post the link to the picture here.
> >
> > .
> >
 
P

Paul

Flightless Bird
Phil wrote:
> using win xp sp3. installed a new sata hard drive and have a 2nd pata hard
> drive.
> the sata is 500gb that i parttioned in half. the o/s is on c:, the other
> portion is D: and the 2nd hard drive is 160gb and is e:
> The o/s system and programs are on c:.
> now... for the issue, when i go to my computer and look at the drives
> everything is in order.
> When i go into disk management it shows as follows
> on top as disk 0 (e:)
> next as disk 1 on left is D: and on right side is c: (hope i'm being clear)
> when i made an image using macrium i made an image of c: and saved to e:
> when i look in the folders it shows that. when i tested the macrium from a
> boot from cd, it shows the backup is in c: all by itself and if i were to
> have to restore i would need to restore to d:
> is that because the drives are out of order in the disk management?
>
> thank you, hope i wasn't long winded.


For those playing along at home:

Disk 0 E: 152.66GB NTFS Healthy

Disk 1 D: 232.87GB NTFS Healthy C: 232.87GB NTFS Healthy (System)

I guess my question would be, what do you want to fix ? Why does Macrium want
to restore the contents of C:, into D: ? Doesn't Macrium realize the position
of that partition ?

You can use this tool, to see which slot each partition entry has been stored in,
in the sector zero primary partition table. Some partition management tools,
like to put entries in the wrong order (and there are good reasons why they
did it - the designers were lazy...).

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/PTEDIT32.zip

I suspect your slots are in order, but the location of the partitions doesn't align
with the slots being used. I'm assuming you installed Windows, and Windows grabbed
the item in the first slot, and that became C:. The question would be, why did the
partition for the second half of the disk, end up in the first slot ?

1) C: (Active) [ Occupies second half of the disk ]
2) D: [ Occupies first half of the disk ]
3)
4)

If D: doesn't have anything in it, you could delete D:, then move C: down to
the beginning of the disk (physically moving all the sectors), then create D: again,
and then it'll show up at the end of the disk. Using PTEDIT32, you can verify that
during that change, C: remains in the same slot it was in originally. If C: moves,
then the boot.ini ARC has to be changed. For example, right now, in my diagram,
C: is in (1). In boot.ini, I'd expect to see
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

The only reason I know about this stuff a bit, is because I straightened out
a mess here, only my mess was a little different than yours. At one point,
Windows would not boot, because the ARC multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)
was wrong, and I had to learn how to fix it, so the slot occupied by the
partition entry, matched what was recorded in boot.ini. You can also
fix issues like that from the Recovery Console, but this is bad enough as it is.
(using the bootcfg command ?)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058

You can run bootcfg from the command prompt right now, and it will display
what is in boot.ini , like this

bootcfg /query

On my boot disk, that gives this (because my C: is in the second slot).
(Hmmm. I still haven't removed the numproc thing...)

Boot Entries
------------
Boot entry ID: 1
Friendly Name: "Microsoft Windows XP Professional"
Path: multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
OS Load Options: /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /numproc=2

The bootcfg in recovery console, has different options than the one
in the regular OS. There is no /rebuild option in the one in the
regular OS. The recovery console supports /rebuild, so you can
correct the ARC without using a text editor, like I did. Being a
simple guy, I just booted Linux and edited the boot.ini from
there :)

And you'd have no reason to "go there" in any case, if all you're
going to do, is move C: to the beginning of the disk, then
re-create an empty D: in the second half of the disk. As long
as your tools don't move C: in the partition table, there'd be
no damage to your ability to boot.

You can use PTEDIT32, to move the partition entries from slot to slot.
You write down the numbers, then copy and paste from one slot to the
other, remembering you'd need to correct boot.ini if you move a
bootable OS. In the past, I've avoided making changes with PTEDIT32,
but when my mess showed up, I did use the opportunity to move
things around in the table. So it can be used to reorder things
(if you're careful).

HTH,
Paul
 
P

Phil

Flightless Bird
You have the boot ini correct for what mine shows. I guess what i thought
should be fixed is that if my drive went wrong i could use macrium and know
that e: should be the image and save to c:. The way it looks as is is that I
have to look for image on c: and restore to d: according to macriums drive
letters.
Phil

"Paul" wrote:

> Phil wrote:
> > using win xp sp3. installed a new sata hard drive and have a 2nd pata hard
> > drive.
> > the sata is 500gb that i parttioned in half. the o/s is on c:, the other
> > portion is D: and the 2nd hard drive is 160gb and is e:
> > The o/s system and programs are on c:.
> > now... for the issue, when i go to my computer and look at the drives
> > everything is in order.
> > When i go into disk management it shows as follows
> > on top as disk 0 (e:)
> > next as disk 1 on left is D: and on right side is c: (hope i'm being clear)
> > when i made an image using macrium i made an image of c: and saved to e:
> > when i look in the folders it shows that. when i tested the macrium from a
> > boot from cd, it shows the backup is in c: all by itself and if i were to
> > have to restore i would need to restore to d:
> > is that because the drives are out of order in the disk management?
> >
> > thank you, hope i wasn't long winded.

>
> For those playing along at home:
>
> Disk 0 E: 152.66GB NTFS Healthy
>
> Disk 1 D: 232.87GB NTFS Healthy C: 232.87GB NTFS Healthy (System)
>
> I guess my question would be, what do you want to fix ? Why does Macrium want
> to restore the contents of C:, into D: ? Doesn't Macrium realize the position
> of that partition ?
>
> You can use this tool, to see which slot each partition entry has been stored in,
> in the sector zero primary partition table. Some partition management tools,
> like to put entries in the wrong order (and there are good reasons why they
> did it - the designers were lazy...).
>
> ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/PTEDIT32.zip
>
> I suspect your slots are in order, but the location of the partitions doesn't align
> with the slots being used. I'm assuming you installed Windows, and Windows grabbed
> the item in the first slot, and that became C:. The question would be, why did the
> partition for the second half of the disk, end up in the first slot ?
>
> 1) C: (Active) [ Occupies second half of the disk ]
> 2) D: [ Occupies first half of the disk ]
> 3)
> 4)
>
> If D: doesn't have anything in it, you could delete D:, then move C: down to
> the beginning of the disk (physically moving all the sectors), then create D: again,
> and then it'll show up at the end of the disk. Using PTEDIT32, you can verify that
> during that change, C: remains in the same slot it was in originally. If C: moves,
> then the boot.ini ARC has to be changed. For example, right now, in my diagram,
> C: is in (1). In boot.ini, I'd expect to see
> default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
>
> The only reason I know about this stuff a bit, is because I straightened out
> a mess here, only my mess was a little different than yours. At one point,
> Windows would not boot, because the ARC multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)
> was wrong, and I had to learn how to fix it, so the slot occupied by the
> partition entry, matched what was recorded in boot.ini. You can also
> fix issues like that from the Recovery Console, but this is bad enough as it is.
> (using the bootcfg command ?)
>
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058
>
> You can run bootcfg from the command prompt right now, and it will display
> what is in boot.ini , like this
>
> bootcfg /query
>
> On my boot disk, that gives this (because my C: is in the second slot).
> (Hmmm. I still haven't removed the numproc thing...)
>
> Boot Entries
> ------------
> Boot entry ID: 1
> Friendly Name: "Microsoft Windows XP Professional"
> Path: multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
> OS Load Options: /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /numproc=2
>
> The bootcfg in recovery console, has different options than the one
> in the regular OS. There is no /rebuild option in the one in the
> regular OS. The recovery console supports /rebuild, so you can
> correct the ARC without using a text editor, like I did. Being a
> simple guy, I just booted Linux and edited the boot.ini from
> there :)
>
> And you'd have no reason to "go there" in any case, if all you're
> going to do, is move C: to the beginning of the disk, then
> re-create an empty D: in the second half of the disk. As long
> as your tools don't move C: in the partition table, there'd be
> no damage to your ability to boot.
>
> You can use PTEDIT32, to move the partition entries from slot to slot.
> You write down the numbers, then copy and paste from one slot to the
> other, remembering you'd need to correct boot.ini if you move a
> bootable OS. In the past, I've avoided making changes with PTEDIT32,
> but when my mess showed up, I did use the opportunity to move
> things around in the table. So it can be used to reorder things
> (if you're careful).
>
> HTH,
> Paul
> .
>
 
Y

Yousuf Khan

Flightless Bird
On 04/09/2010 4:19 PM, Phil wrote:
> using win xp sp3. installed a new sata hard drive and have a 2nd pata hard
> drive.
> the sata is 500gb that i parttioned in half. the o/s is on c:, the other
> portion is D: and the 2nd hard drive is 160gb and is e:
> The o/s system and programs are on c:.
> now... for the issue, when i go to my computer and look at the drives
> everything is in order.
> When i go into disk management it shows as follows
> on top as disk 0 (e:)
> next as disk 1 on left is D: and on right side is c: (hope i'm being clear)
> when i made an image using macrium i made an image of c: and saved to e:
> when i look in the folders it shows that. when i tested the macrium from a
> boot from cd, it shows the backup is in c: all by itself and if i were to
> have to restore i would need to restore to d:
> is that because the drives are out of order in the disk management?
>
> thank you, hope i wasn't long winded.


No, not long-winded at all, it's a common occurrence, and not worth
worrying about. The Disk Management is listing it in the order that the
disks were installed physically and temporally. But the C:, D:, & E:
drives are all still on the drives you expect them to be.

Yousuf Khan
 
P

Pegasus [MVP]

Flightless Bird
It is somewhat unusual to have the System partition as the second partition
on a disk but there is nothing wrong with this. The file boot.ini takes care
of this arrangement. As Yousuf Khan mentioned, there is nothing to worry
about.


"Phil" <Phil@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:9F2371A3-8429-4039-A4BE-BF2CA557158A@microsoft.com...
> i got it. here it is.
> http://cid-b7716b5daf5c24cd.photos.live.com/self.aspx/disk management
>
> "Phil" wrote:
>
>> C:/Documents and Settings\Karen\My Documents\My Pictures\disk
>> management.bmp
>> i posted it. is above what you need to access it?
>> Phil
>>
>> "Pegasus [MVP]" wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >
>> > "Phil" <Phil@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> > news:822DB486-40BB-4B7C-A535-BB3E39DA0AA0@microsoft.com...
>> > > using win xp sp3. installed a new sata hard drive and have a 2nd pata
>> > > hard
>> > > drive.
>> > > the sata is 500gb that i parttioned in half. the o/s is on c:, the
>> > > other
>> > > portion is D: and the 2nd hard drive is 160gb and is e:
>> > > The o/s system and programs are on c:.
>> > > now... for the issue, when i go to my computer and look at the
>> > > drives
>> > > everything is in order.
>> > > When i go into disk management it shows as follows
>> > > on top as disk 0 (e:)
>> > > next as disk 1 on left is D: and on right side is c: (hope i'm being
>> > > clear)
>> > > when i made an image using macrium i made an image of c: and saved to
>> > > e:
>> > > when i look in the folders it shows that. when i tested the macrium
>> > > from a
>> > > boot from cd, it shows the backup is in c: all by itself and if i
>> > > were to
>> > > have to restore i would need to restore to d:
>> > > is that because the drives are out of order in the disk management?
>> > >
>> > > thank you, hope i wasn't long winded.
>> >
>> > Since a picture says more than a thousand words, try this:
>> > 1. Open the Disk Manager.
>> > 2. Press Alt+PrtSc
>> > 3. Open PaintBrush (mspaint.exe)
>> > 4. Press Ctrl+V. You should now see a picture of the disk manager.
>> > 5. Save the file, then upload it to the public area of
>> > www.skydrive.com.
>> > 6. Post the link to the picture here.
>> >
>> > .
>> >
 
D

dadiOH

Flightless Bird
Phil wrote:
> using win xp sp3. installed a new sata hard drive and have a 2nd pata
> hard drive.
> the sata is 500gb that i parttioned in half. the o/s is on c:, the
> other portion is D: and the 2nd hard drive is 160gb and is e:
> The o/s system and programs are on c:.
> now... for the issue, when i go to my computer and look at the drives
> everything is in order.
> When i go into disk management it shows as follows
> on top as disk 0 (e:)
> next as disk 1 on left is D: and on right side is c: (hope i'm being
> clear) when i made an image using macrium i made an image of c: and
> saved to e: when i look in the folders it shows that. when i tested
> the macrium from a boot from cd, it shows the backup is in c: all by
> itself and if i were to have to restore i would need to restore to d:
> is that because the drives are out of order in the disk management?
>
> thank you, hope i wasn't long winded.


Without specifically addressing your concern let me suggest that you can
avoid a lot of confusion simply by giving your drives labels (names) and
more or less disregarding drive letters.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico
 
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