Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win2000.file_system (
More info?)
Hi, Staggerlee.
You might want to take a look at a couple of KB articles:
Order in Which MS-DOS and Windows Assign Drive Letters
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/51978/EN-US/
How Windows 2000 Assigns, Reserves, and Stores Drive Letters
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/234048/EN-US/
As the WinXP Pro Resource Kit says, "Windows XP Professional and Windows
2000 assign drive letters differently from how Windows 98, Windows Me, and
Windows NT 4.0 assign drive letters. Therefore, if the computer starts
multiple operating systems, the drive letters might vary depending on which
operating system is running."
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkb_cnc_vzqu.asp
(I can't always get the URL for a specific page in the RK, so you may have
to drill down to:
Welcome > Part II Desktop Management > Ch 12 Disk Management > Managing
Volumes During Windows XP Professional Setup> Creating Volumes During
Windows XP Professional Setup)
See if these references explain what you are seeing.
Of course, only we humans will be confused with different drive letters
between the two Windows versions. But we will be booted into only one
version at a time, and the Windows we are running at the time will not be
confused, since it will have no idea what letters the other version might
have assigned. As you probably know, you can change drive letters, except
for the System and Boot volumes, by using Device Manager in WinME and Disk
Management in Win2K. If you specifically assign letters, Windows will
attempt to use those same letters persistently; otherwise, letters are
assigned anew each time you reboot, based on the hardware configuration at
that time, in the orders explained in the KB articles.
You did not tell us whether all of your volumes are primary partitions or
whether some are logical drives in extended partitions. It makes a
difference in the order in which letters are assigned. You also did not say
which partition on each drive is marked Active (bootable).
You also did not specifically say that you are using the dual-boot method
built into Win2K. With this method, common to all NT-type versions of
Windows (WinNT4/2K/XP), there is only one System Partition for the computer,
plus a Boot Volume for each Windows installation. The boot process always
starts on the System Partition (typically Drive C
, then branches to
whichever volume holds the Windows version selected from the opening menu.
As you can see from the plain-text file, C:\boot.ini, the computer locates
Win2K by rdisk(#)partition(#), rather than by drive letter. Rdisk(#) is the
physical drive number, starting with zero; partition(#) starts with one on
each HD. So the single partition on your first HD would be
rdisk(0)partition(1). The first partition on your second HD would be
rdisk(1)partition(1), but WinME is not located by this reference. The last
line in C:\boot.ini should be:
C:\="Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition"
or something similar. The label inside the quotes doesn't matter to the
computer; it is there only to provide the text for the opening menu so that
we humans will know which menu item is WinME. When we select WinME, it uses
C:\msdos.sys to locate and load WinME, just as if we were booting into a
WinME-only computer.
You may want to rethink your partition lineup to make it easier on yourself.
When I was dual-booting Win98 and WinXP, I created a small primary partition
at the front of my first HD and formatted it FAT(16) for maximum
compatibility. The rest of my HD became an extended partition, divided into
logical drives. When I added a second HD, I made it all an extended
partition with logical drives (except for a very small primary partition at
the beginning, which I can use for booting if the first HD fails). So long
as I continued to run Win98, I kept all my volumes formatted FAT, so that I
could access them from either Windows version. (After retiring Win98, I
converted all the logical drives to NTFS.) I installed Win98 into
E:\Windows, then installed Win2K into D:\WinNT; D: and E: were logical
drives on HDD0, my first physical drive. Over the years, logical drives
have come and gone, but I still use the same basic pattern: C: is the
System Partition; D: is my main Windows version (now WinXP); other volumes
contain my programs, data, other operating systems (such as a parallel
installation of WinXP, Longhorn), and whatever I feel like putting there. I
keep letters for CD/DVD drives, USB "thumb" drives, cameras, etc., further
out in the alphabet (S:, V:, W:, etc.) to avoid having to change HD volume
letters when something gets added or removed. I much prefer using DM
(Device Manager or Disk Management) to assign letters that suit me than
settling for "the luck of the draw".
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@corridor.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
"staggerlee228" <staggerlee228@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news
4C9E2D8-A9E3-4959-9E64-6285C2EFDDB3@microsoft.com...
> I've just installed ME on one hard drive and W2K Pro on another. My
> question
> deals with drive letter configuations. Both Drives are Western Digitals.
> Drive 1 is 13.6 G. Drive 2 is 80 G. Drive 2 was partitioned into a pair of
> 10G drives and one 60G drive (numbers rounded). When I boot up into the
> different systems, here's what the computer sees. (a: is 3.5 drive for
> both)
>
> Booting up in ME
> C: Win Me on 10G part of Drive 2
> D: Unused 10G part of Drive 2.
> E: Unused 60G part of Drive 2.
> F: CD-ROM
> G: CD-DVD
>
> Booting up in W2K Pro
> C: Win Me on 10G part of Drive 2
> D: W2K Pro on Drive 1
> E: Unused 10G part of Drive 2
> F: Unused 60G part of Drive 2
> G: CD-ROM
> H: CD-DVD
>
> Drive 2 with W2K Pro is NTFS. Drive 1 with W2K is FAT32. I know ME doesn't
> recognize NTFS, so I understand why when the system is in ME mode it won't
> see Drive 2.
> My concern is having having different drive letters between the two OS.
> Only
> C: is common to both drives. All the other drive letters differ depending
> on
> the OS i'm using. Will this cause problems down the road? I'm still in the
> "rebuilding" process for both drives (started over, reformatted drives,
> installed ME first, installed W2K Pro second) and I've run into a few
> glitches (browser freezes up trying to go to second page using Explorer 6)
> but again, I haven't finished all the updates, reloads, ect ... Any help
> or
> advice would be greatly appreciated.
> System:
> A7V8X-X Motherboard
> AMD 2200 Athlon CPU
> 1048 K of Ram (already limited to 512 in ME)
> Internet via Cable Modem
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram