Windows2000 Drive reformatted Issue

[stuartkagy]

I have two hard drives on my puter. One 20 Gig (C, and one 120 Gig (F.
I had to reformat and reinstall windows to make both the drives NTFS. This wiped clean the 120 Gig drive but apparently left all the files intact on the 20 Gig drive.
After reformatting, I discovered that the reinstall gave the drives new letter labels. The big drive is now C: and the little drive (with the intact programs) is noiw D: None of the programs will now open because the path is not recognized. Whats the best way to solve this problem? I tried just changing the drive letter/label, and that did not work.
Anybody know how to fix this?

 

[ponzan]

Rules for drive letters assignment:

If there is a primary partition on the first hard drive marked as active, it gets the first drive letter (C); otherwise, the first drive letter is assigned to the first recognized primary partition. This process is repeated for all hard drives in the system. Please note that if you have multiple controllers in your system, the drive letter ordering is based on the order in which the device drivers are loaded by Windows.
Once the letters have been assigned to the first primary partitions on all drives in the system, letters are assigned to the recognized logical disks in the extended partitions using the same scheme as outlined above, starting with the first drive in the system.

So it looks like you created a primary partition in your 120 Gig drive and placed it first in the controllers ordering; ie 1 IDE channel, and your 20 Gig drive with your OS is now on the 2 IDE or as slave on the 1 IDE. In Win2K logical partitions letters may change if you add more drives/partitions, only the letter of your current system partition can't be changed, it gets fixed at the letter it got the time the OS was installed. If now your OS is loading and programs are not opening, you can try to remake your program shortcuts or redirect their addresses (right click the shortcut and select properties) now to your D: drive. That might work in some simple cases. But all kinds of miseries can come after partition/drives letters changes. And sometimes you'll end reinstalling all over again!!

Partition Magic Manuals/online support will give you more info on this (or a google search with something like "partition drive letters")

So, the main relatively simple way to avoid messing with your lettering is: don't create a primary partition on any hard disks in the system other than the first one. It is perfectly legal to only create an extended partition on a hard disk, and put all of the partitions in it. Most of the time the only place a primary partition will be needed is on the first hard disk, because it may be required to boot the operating system(s).

Hope this helps, good luck

 

[stuartkagy]

No, the Properties thing did not work. It was already pointing to the correct Drive.
Sounds like I am, to quote the phrase, "In a world of doo doo" :-(

 

[ipdave]

If you wiped the drive, the programs still need to be reinstalled; the registry on your windows install holds all program info. You still need to reinstall all programs.

Next time convert to ntfs instead of formatting. "convert/fs:ntfs"

 

[Akeem122]

First of all what i want u to do is to disk connect the IDE cable which runs to the 20 GB Hard drive then wipe everything off the 120 GB hard drive then once that is complete hool back up the 20 GB hard drive and disk connect the 120 GB hard drive and erase that then i want u to decide which hard drive u want to load ur OS on and then connect which ever one then once ur OS is on the hard drive and ur computer is runnin fine the hook back up the second hard drive and u will have no problems

ps when disconnecting/connecting the hard drives make sure the power plug is NOT in