Is it just Windows XP that does this?

[General Porkov]

I finally got round to upgrading some of my PC's parts - going up to a Duron 1,300 with 512MB PC2100 DDR memory, then sticking in a new 80GB 7,200 rpm 8MB cache hard drive.
Then, I decided to use Windows XP Pro as the OS for the system and I used the XP setup CD to prep/ partition the hard drive in to 7 parts (due to FAT32 - in case I wanted to nuke XP), then formatted them and installed XP.
Fair enough!
Then, after installation, I noticed something strange when looking at the drive letters.
There was some kind of split in the lettering of the HD partitions. The first partition was C, then D was the DVD-Rom drive, E was the CD-Writer, then F,G,H,I,J and K were the rest of the hard drive partitions.
I don't know why Windows had 2 sets of hard drive partitions, when all 7 partitions are on one single hard drive!
It's not a critical thing that would cause crashes, it's just weird?
By the way, it is just Windows XP that does this, Windows (any/ all versions) or is it just some strangeness???

Doom Lord General Porkov
Be kind to Pigs and Igs!!!

[RaphX]

I did that with a single HDD on XP Home, making 4 partitions. It put them as C, D, E and F, and made my CD-Writer as G, and DVD-Drive as H. There may be an individual setting that can be changed within Windows, or even BIOS.

[hr]IMAGE:audiotracker.bamboozled.org/remote/song.php/RaphX

and on the eighth day, we bulldozed it.

[TheGamesMaster]

I know under Win98 it doesn't do that. But you can specify the drive letters in system in control panel (not sure location in WinXP). Since you'r using fat32 you try booting from a Win98 startup and seeing what drive letters it gives under dos.

BTW "7 parts (due to FAT32 - in case I wanted to nuke XP)" you don't need 7 if you want to nuke windows and why is this due to fat32?

[General Porkov]

OK, I'll explain why I had the 80 Gig in 7 partitions and FAT32

I formatted all of the partitions as FAT32, so that if I thought 'XP is crap - nuke it!', I could wipe it simply using a Windows 98 startup disk. Also, I wasn't sure whether or not the version of NTFS that XP uses is/ was compatible with Windows 2000, if I changed from XP to 2000.

Also, the drive ended up in 7 partitions, due to the cluster size/ partition size factor. It was so I didn't end up with a grossly inefficient partition with a 16KB or even 32KB cluster size. (If this makes sense) So, all partitions had to be less than 16GB in size.

There was something strange with the 4GB partition - Windows XP set it up as a FAT16 (not FAT32) partition with a 64KB cluster size. So, I converted that to NTFS (0.5KB cluster size)

Chaos Pig-keeper of Doom
Be kind to Pigs and Igs!!!

[Valen_gr]

there is no problem with XP and windows 2000. NTFS works for both just fine.

[hr]where's spoon????
-There is no spoon!!

[Pilmour Boy]

MS continue to make changes to NTFS however, and there is no guarantee that a disc formatted in XP would be readable under 2K.


As to the drive letters- it's your own fault for using an OS stupid enough to use them!

[teamonkey]

You can change the drive letters under Win2K Pro, by going to Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Computer Management, then click on Disk Management. If you right-click on any drive in that window you can change the drive letters, and even map directories as virtual hard drives.