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Windows Question

I currently have my HD partitioned as follows:
C:\ - (System) D:\ (Programs & Games) E:\ (Storage)
and I would like to add another 20 HD that I have but if I do that, it
will take over my D Drive and bump all my partitions down. Is there
any way to stop this and have the 20 GB HD come out as F or some other
letter?? or do I have to redo my system to it doesnt screw up my
programs/games??? By the way I'm using Windows XP Home. Thanks

Dman-x

"Dman-x" wrote in message
...
I currently have my HD partitioned as follows:
C:\ - (System) D:\ (Programs & Games) E:\ (Storage)
and I would like to add another 20 HD that I have but if I do that, it
will take over my D Drive and bump all my partitions down. Is there
any way to stop this and have the 20 GB HD come out as F or some other
letter?? or do I have to redo my system to it doesnt screw up my
programs/games??? By the way I'm using Windows XP Home. Thanks

What happens when you plug in the new drive will depend on the partitions.
Partitions can be primary (and you can have up to 4 per physical drive), or
you can have one extended partition (and up to 3 primaries). An extended
partition lets you have a number of logical partitions. Anyway, when you put
the new drive in the drive letters will be allocated starting at device 0 of
cable 0 (this should probably be your current drive). The primary partitions
on that drive will get the first few drive letters. Then it will look at the
second device on that cable and allocate letters to the primary partition on
that drive, and then do the same for the second cable. Then it will go back
and assign drive letters to the logical partitions.

So if your 3 partitions are all primaries (and assuming that drive is device
0 on controller 0) they will retain their drive letters. If one or more is a
logical partition, they will move to after the primary partition(s) of the
other drive.

Fortunately none of that theory I made you read through matters much in your
case. Windows XP has a disk management feature that allows you to change
drive letters really easily. So if your drives do get mixed up, all you have
to do is right-click My Computer and choose Manage. Click on Disk Management
(under Storage) and your drives will show up. Right-click on any partition
and you can choose to change the drive letter.

Gareth

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 21:42:59 -0500, "philo"
wrote:

"Dman-x" wrote in message
.. .
I currently have my HD partitioned as follows:
C:\ - (System) D:\ (Programs & Games) E:\ (Storage)
and I would like to add another 20 HD that I have but if I do that, it
will take over my D Drive and bump all my partitions down. Is there
any way to stop this and have the 20 GB HD come out as F or some other
letter?? or do I have to redo my system to it doesnt screw up my
programs/games??? By the way I'm using Windows XP Home. Thanks

Dman-x

with windows XP, the drive will not be assigned D: (as it would with win9x)
your present sequence will not be disturbed...
(if it comes out wrong, you can change it in disk management)

Well it doesn't necessarily get assigned to "D:" in Win9x either...
only if you create a primary DOS partition instead of or in addition
to an extended DOS partition(s).

Dave

"Dman-x" wrote in message
...
I currently have my HD partitioned as follows:
C:\ - (System) D:\ (Programs & Games) E:\ (Storage)
and I would like to add another 20 HD that I have but if I do that, it
will take over my D Drive and bump all my partitions down. Is there
any way to stop this and have the 20 GB HD come out as F or some other
letter?? or do I have to redo my system to it doesnt screw up my
programs/games??? By the way I'm using Windows XP Home. Thanks

Dman-x

A: and B: are reserved for floppy drives. C: and on get assigned to
hard drives, then followed by driver-supported devices, like CD-ROM
drives. The primary partition on each physical hard drive gets assigned
a drive letter first. Then all the logical drives in an extended
partition on the 1st hard drive get assigned drive letters, then all
logical drives in an extended partition on the 2nd drive, and so on,
with CD-ROM drives as last. Under Windows 2000 and XP, you can decide
what drive letter gets assigned to each partition, but then you are
changing the assignments that the BIOS would've used.

When adding more physical hard drives and if you don't want drive
letters changed for logical drives in extended partitions on the
previous hard drives, simply create ONLY an extended partition on the
new physical hard drive and create logical drives within it.

"kony" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 21:42:59 -0500, "philo"
wrote:

"Dman-x" wrote in message
.. .
I currently have my HD partitioned as follows:
C:\ - (System) D:\ (Programs & Games) E:\ (Storage)
and I would like to add another 20 HD that I have but if I do that, it
will take over my D Drive and bump all my partitions down. Is there
any way to stop this and have the 20 GB HD come out as F or some other
letter?? or do I have to redo my system to it doesnt screw up my
programs/games??? By the way I'm using Windows XP Home. Thanks

Dman-x

with windows XP, the drive will not be assigned D: (as it would with
win9x)
your present sequence will not be disturbed...
(if it comes out wrong, you can change it in disk management)

Well it doesn't necessarily get assigned to "D:" in Win9x either...
only if you create a primary DOS partition instead of or in addition
to an extended DOS partition(s).

that's correct

also, in win9x if you have the 2nd drive partitioned as primary
but don't want it assigned the letter D:
i;ve found that if you disable the drive in the bios
the OS will see 'see' it and assign it a higher drive letter