What happens when you run out of drive letters?

snowdog · 18 Jul 2007 at 22:28

What happens when you run out of drive letters?
I'm already @ Q:\ but been wanting to add 2x 500 gb hdd's and split em in several partitions, what would happen if i used everything up to Z:\ ?

My situation atm:

Ross1234 · 18 Jul 2007 at 22:34

I have always wondered this. Get daemon tools and mount some virtual drives to speed things up. (its free). Also plug in loads of cards to a card reader
i can get to S

Ross1234 · 18 Jul 2007 at 22:34

Sprechen Sie Duetsch?
Is that German?

moid · 18 Jul 2007 at 22:38

Ross1234 said:
Sprechen Sie Duetsch?
Is that German?

The clue is just under his name where is says

Location: Netherlands

Ross1234 · 18 Jul 2007 at 22:39

oops

this is all i could find

"Windows 2000 automatically assigns drive letters to all partitions, including partitions that are in raw format (partitions that have not been formatted). This can cause a problem if there are many partitions because Windows 2000 may run out of drive letters to assign. Some programs use raw partitions; assigning drive letters in this case is not required or appropriate."

EDIT: I found out. It simply doesn't show it.

MarcLister · 18 Jul 2007 at 22:50

Can you not use A: and B:? If you don't use a floppy drive, surely you can use A: for another drive?

Ross1234 · 18 Jul 2007 at 22:51

They are not assigned

mctiny · 18 Jul 2007 at 22:53

MarcLister said:
Can you not use A: and B:? If you don't use a floppy drive, surely you can use A: for another drive?

Yes you can, and when you have used everything from A to Z then it's time to mount the drive/partition as a folder

aix0 · 18 Jul 2007 at 22:53

You can mount disks / partitions / volumes to folders, much like Unix.

snowdog · 18 Jul 2007 at 22:54

Ross1234 said:
oops

this is all i could find

"Windows 2000 automatically assigns drive letters to all partitions, including partitions that are in raw format (partitions that have not been formatted). This can cause a problem if there are many partitions because Windows 2000 may run out of drive letters to assign. Some programs use raw partitions; assigning drive letters in this case is not required or appropriate."

EDIT: I found out. It simply doesn't show it.

pfff. That's stupid if it doesn't show it.
Ahwell I suppose ill leave my partitions bigger than I would want.

Yes I speak german lol, but badly, dropped the language after 1 year, but it's very similair to dutch so I think i'd understand what a german would say roughly.

MarcLister · 18 Jul 2007 at 22:57

mctiny said:
Yes you can, and when you have used everything from A to Z then it's time to mount the drive/partition as a folder

Exactly. I was telling the OP that because I couldn't see A and B being used, then perhaps he could use them. But I suppose they could be used for removable drives so not visible but already declared as it were.

snowdog · 18 Jul 2007 at 23:01

Hmmm mounting, never heard of it lol (mounting hdd's into folders that is...).

As for A and B, yes they're free, how can u assign hdd's to them, tbh I can't believe windows still reserves this for floppy's, I haven't used them since cd rewritables became affordable.

mctiny · 18 Jul 2007 at 23:03

MarcLister said:
Exactly. I was telling the OP that because I couldn't see A and B being used, then perhaps he could use them. But I suppose they could be used for removable drives so not visible but already declared as it were.

Windows kind of "hides" A and B, but is it really necessary these days?
I remember once I used A:\ (as a network drive on my home server) for "Applications" needless to say it was a hassle when I needed to plug in a USB FDD

MarcLister · 18 Jul 2007 at 23:05

snowdog said:
Hmmm mounting, never heard of it lol.

As for A and B, yes they're free, how can u assign hdd's to them, tbh I can't believe windows still reserves this for floppy's, I haven't used them since cd rewritables became affordable.

Start>Settings>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management.

Then right click on a drive and change drive letter. However I cannot see A: or B: in the list. Only C-Z in there. So either there is another way/tool to do this or Windows need to be told to allow A: and B: to be used.

mctiny · 18 Jul 2007 at 23:14

MarcLister said:
Start>Settings>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management.

Then right click on a drive and change drive letter. However I cannot see A: or B: in the list. Only C-Z in there. So either there is another way/tool to do this or Windows need to be told to allow A: and B: to be used.

I'm guessing you have to remove or disable the FDD controller within the BIOS to allocate A/B to HDD's.

MarcLister · 18 Jul 2007 at 23:18

Interesting that you should say that. I have a floppy drive but its not enabled in the BIOS as I very rarely use it and I used to accidentally hit the A: drive in Windows Explorer when I wanted C:. Cue a few seconds of noisy whirring and then Windows moaning that there is no disk in A:! Really Sherlock?! :rolleyes:

So I disabled, not to recycle A:, but to save me some time and annoyance.

mctiny · 18 Jul 2007 at 23:26

MarcLister said:
Interesting that you should say that. I have a floppy drive but its not enabled in the BIOS as I very rarely use it and I used to accidentally hit the A: drive in Windows Explorer when I wanted C:. Cue a few seconds of noisy whirring and then Windows moaning that there is no disk in A:! Really Sherlock?!

So I disabled, not to recycle A:, but to save me some time and annoyance.

I remember on my old shuttle system there was two settings related to the FDD and I had to disable both to be able to use A/B, one was the Controller and the other I'm not sure but it could be FDD support.

MarcLister · 18 Jul 2007 at 23:32

Could be. I'll check next time I boot into BIOS. Having problems getting Cool and Quiet to work. But thats another thread entirely.

snowdog · 18 Jul 2007 at 23:34

mctiny said:
I'm guessing you have to remove or disable the FDD controller within the BIOS to allocate A/B to HDD's.

Both are disabled, it's the first thing I do after a clean bios, the last thing I need is bios searching for a floppy as 1st boot device and windows searching for a floppy and showing one up in my computer while there isn't one.
When will manufacturers believe those damn drives are obselete, they remove 1x ide but leave floppy :confused:

, remove the damn floppy from the mainboard mobo manufacturers and leave IDE alone

.
Raid drivers dont even have to be on floppy's, my dad copied the raid drivers from a pre made floppy onto a cd and gave the cd to me and it worked fine, why do manufacturers still make raid drivers for floppy's instead of cd's?

Still no A:\ and B;\ tho for selection in disk management.

mctiny · 18 Jul 2007 at 23:49

snowdog said:
Both are disabled, it's the first thing I do after a clean bios, the last thing I need is bios searching for a floppy as 1st boot device and windows searching for a floppy and showing one up in my computer while there isn't one.
When will manufacturers believe those damn drives are obselete, they remove 1x ide but leave floppy , remove the damn floppy from the mainboard mobo manufacturers and leave IDE alone .
Raid drivers dont even have to be on floppy's, my dad copied the raid drivers from a pre made floppy onto a cd and gave the cd to me and it worked fine, why do manufacturers still make raid drivers for floppy's instead of cd's?

Still no A:\ and B;\ tho for selection in disk management.

well thats me stumped :confused: