HELP: VISTA 32 - Changed Drive letters so no boot

cuchulainn2000 · 02-20-2008, 01:13 PM

Hi

I have a new'ish PC with Vista 32.

The main drive(s) is two 250Gb drive configured as one 500Gb RAID drive, which was identified as the C drive and included the windows install.

When an additional drive was installed the computer of its own volition labeled it the B drive.

The computer now fails to boot up windows and says it cannot find the windows installation.

I have determined that the computer seems to have renamed the previous B drive as the C drive and the previous C drive as the D drive. (All my previous data seems to be there and intact from what I can tell)

Could this be why the computer cant find the windows as it is now looking in the wrong place...

I have read that computers 'reserve' the A and B drive designations for floppy drives. Did the computer 'realize' that it had incorrectly designated a hard drive as B and in correcting this screwed things up?

How can I correct this? I do want to avoid a fresh install as all my data seems to be intact and it is just a case of a shifted drive designation.

The twin RAID hard drives (the ones with the windows VISTA 32 installed) are Western Digital WD2500KS if it helps.

Help please...

C-

**Lead3** · 02-20-2008, 04:54 PM

Go to the BIOS a make sure that your Raid array is the first in the boot order. Some systems will change the boot hard drive priority (order) when a new drive is installed.

~~His Technicion~~ · 02-20-2008, 10:53 PM

I'd say, before you do anything, remove the new drive and make sure you have the original data intact.

Your RAID 0 is fragile. If one of those drives goes, all the data on both drives is worthless & gone forever.

02-20-2008, 01:13 PM	#1 (permalink)
cuchulainn2000 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 1 OS: windows vista 32	HELP: VISTA 32 - Changed Drive letters so no boot Hi I have a new'ish PC with Vista 32. The main drive(s) is two 250Gb drive configured as one 500Gb RAID drive, which was identified as the C drive and included the windows install. When an additional drive was installed the computer of its own volition labeled it the B drive. The computer now fails to boot up windows and says it cannot find the windows installation. I have determined that the computer seems to have renamed the previous B drive as the C drive and the previous C drive as the D drive. (All my previous data seems to be there and intact from what I can tell) Could this be why the computer cant find the windows as it is now looking in the wrong place... I have read that computers 'reserve' the A and B drive designations for floppy drives. Did the computer 'realize' that it had incorrectly designated a hard drive as B and in correcting this screwed things up? How can I correct this? I do want to avoid a fresh install as all my data seems to be intact and it is just a case of a shifted drive designation. The twin RAID hard drives (the ones with the windows VISTA 32 installed) are Western Digital WD2500KS if it helps. Help please... C-

02-20-2008, 04:54 PM	#2 (permalink)
Lead3 Mentor Hardware Team Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Florida, USA Posts: 1,378 OS: 98SE,2000,XP SP3,VISTA SP2 x64 & x86, Windows 7 x64 & x86 My System	Re: HELP: VISTA 32 - Changed Drive letters so no boot Go to the BIOS a make sure that your Raid array is the first in the boot order. Some systems will change the boot hard drive priority (order) when a new drive is installed. __________________

02-20-2008, 10:53 PM	#3 (permalink)
~~His Technicion~~ Troubled Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 28 OS: Vista Freeware	Re: HELP: VISTA 32 - Changed Drive letters so no boot I'd say, before you do anything, remove the new drive and make sure you have the original data intact. Your RAID 0 is fragile. If one of those drives goes, all the data on both drives is worthless & gone forever.