Hi, Mr. Curious.
> I found disc management and lo and behold there was my hidden disc.
My favorite utility - ever since it first appeared in Windows 2000, 10 years
ago this month. ;<)
There are several ways to run Disk Management. My favorite is just to press
Start, type "diskmgmt.msc", and press Enter. (You'll need to furnish
Administrator credentials, of course, because you can do a lot of harm here,
as well as good.) Then Maximize the window so that you're not working
through a keyhole, and widen the Status column so you can see all the very
important labels, such as which are the System and Boot volumes.
> It wasn't really hidden but it had no drive letter assigned. So, the
> computer gave it one.
The computer usually doesn't pay much attention to drive letters. These are
mostly for use by us humans. When installed on a virgin system, Win7
creates a small 100 MB partition with no drive letter so that there is less
chance for a user to delete or corrupt essential files. But Disk Management
will assign it a letter, if you insist. The letters A: and B: have
traditionally been reserved for floppy drives since the days before there
were hard drives, but they can also be used. I find it helpful to assign
letters mnemonically and often use W: for my DVD Writer drive, or X: for a
WinXP installation partition. Or even J
Windows for Win7's Boot Folder.
(See KB 314470 for definitions of System Volume and Boot Volume - but be
aware that the KB needs to be updated and clarified, even though it was last
revised 10/29/09:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US )
> But seriously, Win7 doesn't automatically assign drive letters to fixed
> disk? Did I have to "map" it first?
A "drive" letter is NEVER assigned to a fixed disk. Even if a single
partition covers the whole disk, the letter is assigned to the partition,
not the HDD. So if no partition has been created, no letter can be
assigned. The partition need not be formatted, but it must exist.
> The Win7 Operating system is now on drive letter "J". I don't know why a
> personal computer (not a networked one) could ever have a drive letter
> "J", but I got one.
Every one of the 26 letters in the English alphabet can be used for "drive"
letters. I put "drive" in quotes because letters don't actually refer to
physical hard drives, of course, but to partitions on the disks - or on
flash drives or optical drives or digital cameras or SD cards (or on network
drives, but I have no experience with networks) or ...??? (Yes, flash
drives, CDs, etc., can be partitioned, although they rarely are.) The term
"volume" is often used, instead of "drive", to cut down on the confusion a
little. Disk Management can assign or reassign these letters EXCEPT for the
System and Boot volumes; these letters are assigned by Setup.exe during
installation of the operating system and can't be reassigned except by
re-installing Windows. (Unless you're more expert than me at hacking the
Registry.)
When installed by booting from the DVD, Win7 assigns the letter C: to its
own Boot Volume, even if we install it to the 3rd partition on the second
HDD, because it has no idea what letters have been assigned already. But if
we boot into WinXP, for example, and run Win7's Setup from that desktop,
Setup can see the letters that WinXP has assigned and will use those same
letters. So if you had already created Drive J: and told Setup to install
Win7 into that volume, it would obey your instruction and you would end up
with Win7 in J
Windows. To change that, you'd have to install Win7 again.
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64
"ng_reader" <wilgrow_co@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:hlu2kf$q5s$1@news.eternal-september.org...
> On 2/21/2010 7:51 PM, relic wrote:
>>
>> "John McGaw" <Nobody@Nowh.ere> wrote in message
>> news:cXign.267748$o06.75593@en-nntp-08.dc1.easynews.com...
>>> On 2/21/2010 3:48 PM, ng_reader wrote:
>>>> On 2/21/2010 33 PM, John McGaw wrote:
>>>>> On 2/21/2010 3:05 PM, Jack wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "ng_reader" <wilgrow_co@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>>>>> news:hls21g$toq$1@news.eternal-september.org...
>>>>>>> Because my XP machine was no longer able to see any USB device
>>>>>>> (any!)
>>>>>>> I ended up migrating to Win7 with a PS2 keyboard. Shucks, I might
>>>>>>> have
>>>>>>> stayed with XP if I had access to a PS2 mouse... (newegg had one but
>>>>>>> it was like 3 days away...)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> BIOS setting
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> All my old data is there (I think) but I really, really, really
>>>>>>> don't
>>>>>>> like explorer. Maybe it's just me.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> One of my biggest problems is that I had a couple of internal hard
>>>>>>> disks off the two internal IDE controllers and Win7 only wants to
>>>>>>> see
>>>>>>> the HD that has the OS on it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Do I need to configure something somewhere?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Take ownership"
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I am pretty sure that I *wanted* to install Win7 to the *2nd* hard
>>>>>>> disk but the OS can only see the *1st* hard disk. Anyone recognize
>>>>>>> this?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> BTW, the copy of Win7 was really for a notebook that I bought that
>>>>>>> came with the upgrade when I bought it last summer. But, I really,
>>>>>>> really can't see that being the issue.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It's not
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> going mental.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Mr. Curious
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> To which I'd add, make sure that the drive(s) are showing up in disk
>>>>> management and each has a drive letter assigned.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Well,
>>>>
>>>> They don't show up. I have two fixed disks one of which is partitioned
>>>> into two separate drive letters. Naturally they are both there but not
>>>> the other which has a single partition.
>>>>
>>>> As for the BIOS, gosh, I tried that already. On the list of 14 things I
>>>> did, that was #2.
>>>>
>>>> What was odd is the machine got past POST fine, hit the splash and all
>>>> went dead. So it had to be Windows, I reckon.
>>>>
>>>> Now the stuff is working via Win7 but I am running into a ton of errors
>>>> with all my old 32-bit aps not working, etc.
>>>>
>>>> Just don't get it. Or Microsoft's version of reality, either.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Did either of the two old HDs have an operating system installed on
>>> it? If so, I've seen things get a little weird as the boot processor
>>> latches onto the old OS rather than the new and gets terminally
>>> confused. Some BIOSs have settings which can set the boot sequence in
>>> painstaking detail specifying not only the type device in the boot
>>> sequence (CD, HD, etc) but also _which_ CD and _which_ HD. Others are
>>> a lot more sketchy and I suspect that your BIOS might be in the latter
>>> category. In cases like this I've had luck installing the old disk
>>> drive(s) in an external enclosure and pulling the data off of them
>>> that way. But if all of your USB ports are dead you might be screwed
>>> there too unless you have access to a usable firewire case.
>>
>> Check with the manufacturer for W7 motherboard drivers, too.
>> For a starting point with BIOS, you usually have some sort of "Restore
>> Defaults" option. It's often F5 or F7.
>>
>>
>
> Well, I am still very new. And, admittedly do a number of stupid things.
> Which could describe me as stupid, I guess.
>
> I found disc management and lo and behold there was my hidden disc. It
> wasn't really hidden but it had no drive letter assigned. So, the computer
> gave it one. The Win7 Operating system is now on drive letter "J". I don't
> know why a personal computer (not a networked one) could ever have a drive
> letter "J", but I got one.
>
> I will now try and migrate data off that I could use and start over again
> from scratch.
>
> Oh, one other question, as it was already sort of answered here --- I keep
> a lot of instalation applications on my hard disk under a folder called
> APS, which I've seen before. I know none of them are 64-bit aps. Is there
> some kind of way to "install" my older "aps" in compatibility mode? Does
> that even make sense.
>
> But seriously, Win7 doesn't automatically assign drive letters to fixed
> disk? Did I have to "map" it first?
>
> Cheers computer people.