strange reassignment of drive letters when rebooting.

[dodecahedron]

recently i've started having this strange problem.
whenever i reboot the drive letters of the optical drives get reassigned differently than they're supposed to be.

my drives:
Motherboard IDE controller, secondary channel:
master LG DVDRAM, slave Lite-On CDRW
IDE controller card, secondary channel:
master BenQ DVDRW, slave Toshiba DVDROM

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=== Scsi-Device-Map ===
CdRomPeripheral: BENQ    DVD DD DW1620   B7W9   Pnp680r Port 0 ID 0  DMA: Off
CdRomPeripheral: TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-M1712J004   Pnp680r Port 0 ID 1  DMA: Off
DiskPeripheral : ST380817AS              3.42   Si3112r Port 1 ID 0  DMA: Off
DiskPeripheral : IC35L040AVER07-0                 atapi Port 2 ID 0  DMA: On
DiskPeripheral : WDC WD200BB-00DGA0               atapi Port 2 ID 1  DMA: On
CdRomPeripheral: HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-H10L         atapi Port 3 ID 0  DMA: On
CdRomPeripheral: LITE-ON LTR-52327S               atapi Port 3 ID 1  DMA: On

=== CDRom-Device-Map ===
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-H10L   J:   CDRom2
LITE-ON LTR-52327S         K:   CDRom3
BENQ DVD DD DW1620         L:   CDRom0
TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-M1712   M:   CDRom1

the usual arrangement i have is:

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HL-DT-ST DVDRAM (motherboard, secondary master): J
LITE-ON CDRW    (motherboard, secondary slave):  K
BENQ DVDRW      (IDE card, secondary master):    L
TOSHIBA DVD-ROM (IDE card, secondary slave):     M

after rebooting i get:

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HL-DT-ST DVDRAM (motherboard, secondary master): I
LITE-ON CDRW    (motherboard, secondary slave):  J
BENQ DVDRW      (IDE card, secondary master):    L
TOSHIBA DVD-ROM (IDE card, secondary slave):     H

drive letters C-G are used by HD partitions.
see the pics below.

i didn't install any new software recently (not that i can think of any software that would do that), just ZoneAlarm but i think the drive-letter-changing started later that that.
no recent BIOS update or firmware updates of the drives.

note the weird order of letters i get. makes sense that it starts with H since up to G are used. but why skip K? and why this order?
any idea why this is happenning ???

[bill]

I'm not sure if this helps, wish I remembered more details..

I read somewhere ( can't find it now ) that Norton recycle bin can cause problems if you delete files off a USB device and disconnect the USB device before clearing the recycle bin. Something about Norton hanging on to the drive letter..


.

[dodecahedron]

don't have the Norton Recycle bin for a long time now...
the only Norton remnant on the system is the SystemWorks 2003 -> Ghost 2003, plus all the crap of LiveUpdate, LiveReg, WMI Update (wtf is that?) or whatever other #@$ is left on the system from the days i had and used Norton Antivirus, Personal Firewall, Utilities.
(actually now checking i don't have the LiveReg and LiveUpdate anymore)

so that's not it. but thanks

[dodecahedron]

bump?
anyone have a clue ?

i have DaemonTools installed, but:
1. i had it installed for a long time now and this phenomenon just stared happening a short while ago.
2. i only haev DT running when i actually need it (when i mount images).
when i'm done i set number of drives to 0 (disable) and exit the program (so it doesn't run in the background).

can't think of anything else.

[pranav81]

Hi.

There may be one solution.It worked for me.

Go to Computer Management & select Disk Management.In there select the drives you have & manually select the drive letters.

Reboot.Now the drive letters should not change.

Let us know what happens....

::Pranav::

[dodecahedron]

hi pranav, nice to see you again.

but you didn't understand:
i did fix the drive letter mis-assignments in Computer Management.
but after a reboot - messed up again!
fixed again, reboot, messed up again. etc. etc.
always messed up the same way described above.

[pranav81]

Yeah...its been a long time since I actively participated.Just completed my professional education and now clearing up things to start a new life......

How exactly do you change the drive letters in there?

::Pranav::

[dodecahedron]

Yeah...its been a long time since I actively participated.Just completed my professional education and now clearing up things to start a new life......

congrats

How exactly do you change the drive letters in there?

is there more than 1 way ???
in the Disk Management applet: right click the drive, choose Change drive letters and paths, click the Change button, select the new letter i want (the way it was before getting "messed up"), then click OK.

totally straightforward.
the problem isn't with how i'm changing the drive letters. they get changed just fine.
the problem is what happens when i reboot.

[pranav81]

Thanks for the wishes.

Well.....You are changing the drive letters correctly.I did the same thing and Windows now 'remembers' the setting even if I unplug a HDD or a ODD.

I will tinker along & see if there is some solution for your problem.

Catch ya later.

::Pranav::

[SkaarjMaster]

Holy moly! Strange problem that I've never heard of before. Any chance you can get something or some program to take control of H: and I: and lock them out as a choice? This way the silly thing that happening would be forced to start at J: Although, it looks like it's messing up the order as well, so you may still end up with the DVD-ROM as J: and not M: as you like.

[dodecahedron]

Holy moly! Strange problem that I've never heard of before.

i agree

[dodecahedron]

shit!

i decided to give up.
since the last drive letter taken by an HD is G, i decided to reassign the opticals to H,I,J,K.

the new arrangement is:

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HL-DT-ST DVDRAM (motherboard, secondary master): H
LITE-ON CDRW    (motherboard, secondary slave):  I
BENQ DVDRW      (IDE card, secondary master):    J
TOSHIBA DVD-ROM (IDE card, secondary slave):     K

after rebooting i get:

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HL-DT-ST DVDRAM (motherboard, secondary master): I
LITE-ON CDRW    (motherboard, secondary slave):  K
BENQ DVDRW      (IDE card, secondary master):    J
TOSHIBA DVD-ROM (IDE card, secondary slave):     H

see the pics below.

for some reason the BenQ is unchanged, both in the previous letter assignments (1st post) and in the new setup (this post).
but the order of reassignment isn't the same now as it was before

it turns out that the fact that i had a few "unused" letters between HDs and opticals isn't the reason.

[SkaarjMaster]

That is really some f-ed up sh*t there! I wonder if there is any way to get in the registry and force letters upon those drives that would never change unless you altered that registry setting again? That's the only thing I can think of right now.

[dodecahedron]

things are getting worse

now the drive letters of the HDD partitions are getting messed up too