Recently I had an XP OS crash. Received a "non system disk" error on black screen. No disks in floppy drive, ZIP drive or CD drive. Eventually, I determined that I had to reinstall XP. Wen reinstalling, XP evidently did not recognize itself on the disk as it asked for my previous Windows CD. After inserting my Win98 CD in the drive, XP installed OK. However, two problems occurred: First, I have two hard drives on my system. The large 13 GB drive is drive 0, the boot drive, formerly designated drive C:\; my second backup drive, drive 1, is 3 GB, is older and slower and was previously designated drive D:\. After the install XP had reversed the drive letters on these drives; now my boot drive(formerly C:\) is designated drive D:\ and the backup drive (formerly D:\) is designated drive C: Second, because XP did not recognize itself on the drive and requested my Win98 CD, it installed itself with a "clean" registry. Consequently, none of the programs on the hard disk were installed in the Startup menu. Everything is there, but not listed in the Startup registry. Also, some of the programs will not start by clicking on their .exe files, evidently, because the drive letters were switched. Some programs will start, however.
I have tried to change the drive letter designations back to their original designations by drilling down through the Performance & Maintenance menu to the "Disk Management" tool where it suggests that drive letters can be changed. However, when I attempt to change the drive letters on either hard disk, XP gives me a popup window with a message to the effect that "windows cannot change the drive letter designation!" . . . so why offer the possibility in the first place????
I need to know how to change my drive letter designations back to their original designations.
Finally, if I unhook all of my periferals, except my mouse, can I reinstall XP without it looking for peripheral drivers and asking for the previous Windows CD? Or am I at the point wher I must format the hard drive and start all over?
I have no problem with formatting the hard disk and starting from scratch except that I am worried about the drive letter assignment. For instance, my big drive (drive 0) is newer and faster than the smaller drive and I want it to be not only the boot drive but designated as drive C:\. Will this happen automatically if I format the disk and reinstall XP?
Also, It has been several years since I reformatted a disk and reinstalled any Windows OS. I want to be assured that I can do this with my XP CD without some kind of strange Windows problem. I really pine for the old days of DOS where things could be controlled from the command line. Thinking of going to Linux!!!
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Regards,
Mike37
I have tried to change the drive letter designations back to their original designations by drilling down through the Performance & Maintenance menu to the "Disk Management" tool where it suggests that drive letters can be changed. However, when I attempt to change the drive letters on either hard disk, XP gives me a popup window with a message to the effect that "windows cannot change the drive letter designation!" . . . so why offer the possibility in the first place????
I need to know how to change my drive letter designations back to their original designations.
Finally, if I unhook all of my periferals, except my mouse, can I reinstall XP without it looking for peripheral drivers and asking for the previous Windows CD? Or am I at the point wher I must format the hard drive and start all over?
I have no problem with formatting the hard disk and starting from scratch except that I am worried about the drive letter assignment. For instance, my big drive (drive 0) is newer and faster than the smaller drive and I want it to be not only the boot drive but designated as drive C:\. Will this happen automatically if I format the disk and reinstall XP?
Also, It has been several years since I reformatted a disk and reinstalled any Windows OS. I want to be assured that I can do this with my XP CD without some kind of strange Windows problem. I really pine for the old days of DOS where things could be controlled from the command line. Thinking of going to Linux!!!
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Regards,
Mike37