drive letter assignments

I have the following disk setup: Partition 1, primary and active, 1GB, contains only the boot files and a few utilities Partition 2, logical, 40GB, contains XP SP2 Partition 3, logical, 40GB, contains Vista build 5308 Partition 4, logical, 39GB, contains common data
I (re)installed Vista by booting from the DVD, not from within XP.
When I boot to XP, the drive letters are assigned as follows: P1 is C: P2 is D: P3 is E: P4 is F:
When I boot to Vista, this is what I get: P1 is D: P2 is E: P3 is C: P4 is F:
This is rather confusing. At worst I might have expected the letters for P2 and P3 to be swapped, but the boot partition should remain C: in all cases, IMO. Better yet, the setup process should allow chosing the letter assignments from the word go. -- Pierre Szwarc Paris, France PGP key ID 0x75B5779B ------------------------------------------------ Multitasking: Reading in the bathroom ! ------------------------------------------------

This is why I now label my hard drives based on what is installed.
The first time I booted into Vista and saw it was on "C" I just about freaked because just a few weeks earlier I had a big data loss and thought I had done something wrong.
Turns out all was OK - just did not expect the behavior.
:-)
-- Richard Hay Webmaster http://WindowsObserver.com
"Pierre Szwarc" wrote in message

I have the following disk setup: Partition 1, primary and active, 1GB, contains only the boot files and a few utilities Partition 2, logical, 40GB, contains XP SP2 Partition 3, logical, 40GB, contains Vista build 5308 Partition 4, logical, 39GB, contains common data
I (re)installed Vista by booting from the DVD, not from within XP.
When I boot to XP, the drive letters are assigned as follows: P1 is C: P2 is D: P3 is E: P4 is F:
When I boot to Vista, this is what I get: P1 is D: P2 is E: P3 is C: P4 is F:
This is rather confusing. At worst I might have expected the letters for P2 and P3 to be swapped, but the boot partition should remain C: in all cases, IMO. Better yet, the setup process should allow chosing the letter assignments from the word go. -- Pierre Szwarc Paris, France PGP key ID 0x75B5779B ------------------------------------------------ Multitasking: Reading in the bathroom ! ------------------------------------------------

On Fri, 31 Mar 2006 10:25:51 +0200, "Pierre Szwarc" wrote:

When I boot to XP, the drive letters are assigned as follows: P1 is C: P2 is D: P3 is E: P4 is F:
When I boot to Vista, this is what I get: P1 is D: P2 is E: P3 is C: P4 is F:
This is rather confusing.

Microsoft says this was done "by design". In earlier betas they used another wording: "not a bug, but a feature".
You can avoid this ugly behaviour by hiding other partitions during setup. (Partition Magic or similar utilities)
SlowFax

I also label them, out of long habit, so I didn't freak out for more than a couple of seconds ;)) Anyway, this is a test system, all the contents are expendable. -- Pierre Szwarc Paris, France PGP key ID 0x75B5779B ------------------------------------------------ Multitasking: Reading in the bathroom ! ------------------------------------------------
"Richard Hay" a écrit dans le message de news: uJApX7LVGHA.4792@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl... | This is why I now label my hard drives based on what is installed. | | The first time I booted into Vista and saw it was on "C" I just about | freaked because just a few weeks earlier I had a big data loss and thought I | had done something wrong. | | Turns out all was OK - just did not expect the behavior. | | :-)

Thanks, but I strongly wish (sarcastic understatement) Microsoft wouldn't interfere with how I like to set my machine up. As long as the OS operates normally, this is *my* computer, not Microsoft's. Unless they wish to pay me for it, of course <eg> Especially as there doesn't seem to be a valid technical reason for this design decision. -- Pierre Szwarc Paris, France PGP key ID 0x75B5779B ------------------------------------------------ Multitasking: Reading in the bathroom ! ------------------------------------------------
"SlowFax" a écrit dans le message de news: oj9q22hf421gbaniq4uad1a1ern6kkvoaf@4ax.com... | | Microsoft says this was done "by design". In earlier betas they used | another wording: "not a bug, but a feature". | | You can avoid this ugly behaviour by hiding other partitions during | setup. (Partition Magic or similar utilities) | | SlowFax

Hi,
The way Vista has assigned the letters is interesting, and in some cases preferable to the "old" system. Your setup is not what most people would have, because you have a special "boot" partition. Most people end up with the boot loader and at least one o/s on the same partition.
Here are my thoughts on the situation:
1. The "normal" way of setting up computers (as recommended by Microsoft to OEMs) is totally stupid. Your method is superior, but not many people's machines are set up that way (also see below about boot sectors).
2. The "old" setup behavior (when booting a second Windows install from CD/DVD) was for the text mode portion of setup to assign drive letters depending on which partitions it could see, and then installing Windows to the next one - this usually ended up being something like "Drive E" and there was no way to change it later. In my view this was annoying (for both servers and clients) because on a big network you need everything to have drive letter consistency. There were ways round it like manually editing the MBR, but that's not ideal for everyone.
3. The "new" setup behavior allows you to install a second Windows o/s, but when you boot into that o/s, it "sees itself as residing on the C" drive regardless of which partition it's on. Most other drive letters can be assigned from Disk management. In my view, this is great.
However, that part where it's not so great is the Vista boot loader. From what I can tell this will simply overwrite your existing boot loader regardless of which partition it was on. If your old C drive was #1, it will write a new boot sector and replace NTLDR with the Vista boot manager. I'm guessing it must have done this on your system too? In other words, your Partition #1 got stomped by the Vista install program and now contains the Vista boot manager?
On a setup like yours it won't matter because the boot loader has it's own partition, but on my test system I ended up with Vista on partition #4, but the Vista BCD boot loader is now on partition #1 and has overwritten the NTLDR boot loader which wasn't what I wanted although it was no surprise.
Pierre Szwarc wrote:

I have the following disk setup: Partition 1, primary and active, 1GB, contains only the boot files and a few utilities Partition 2, logical, 40GB, contains XP SP2 Partition 3, logical, 40GB, contains Vista build 5308 Partition 4, logical, 39GB, contains common data
I (re)installed Vista by booting from the DVD, not from within XP.
When I boot to XP, the drive letters are assigned as follows: P1 is C: P2 is D: P3 is E: P4 is F:
When I boot to Vista, this is what I get: P1 is D: P2 is E: P3 is C: P4 is F:
This is rather confusing. At worst I might have expected the letters for P2 and P3 to be swapped, but the boot partition should remain C: in all cases, IMO. Better yet, the setup process should allow chosing the letter assignments from the word go.

-- Gerry Hickman (London UK)

You're correct, the Vista boot loader overwrote the NT one. My next step is to see what happens with a 3rd-party boot manager (namely, System Commander 8.02). On the way Vista assigns the drive letters: I can understand the OS "deciding" it's residing on C: *by default*. But there should be a way for us geeks to set the drive letters at setup time, or at least telling the setup to switch the boot and system partition letters. Until MS does away with drive letters altogether, of course. -- Pierre Szwarc Paris, France PGP key ID 0x75B5779B ------------------------------------------------ Multitasking: Reading in the bathroom ! ------------------------------------------------
"Gerry Hickman" a écrit dans le message de news: usBjHBMfGHA.3364@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl... | Hi, | | The way Vista has assigned the letters is interesting, and in some cases | preferable to the "old" system. Your setup is not what most people would | have, because you have a special "boot" partition. Most people end up | with the boot loader and at least one o/s on the same partition. | [snip]