WinXp Drive assigments

[casual01]

When I installed winxp home on my computer, I noticed that it was loading to drive F:, but didn't think anything about after that. after installed and setup, I shut down and installed an old 30 gig. as the primary slave, and rebooted. (Yes I'm sure because I went directly into the bios and checked, it had my new 120 gig as primary master, the 30 gig as primary slave, the dvd-rw as the sec. master, and the cd as sec. slave.)

When I got into windows and checked my computer, sure enough, it set the 30 gig up as c: drive, the dvd-rw as d: drive, the cd as e: drive, and the 120 gig as f: drive.

What happened and how can I get it straightened out so the 120 is c:, 30 as d: dvd as e: and cd as f:?????

[glc]

It's going to require a wipe and reinstall.

[Statica]

Before you do a wipe, might be worthwhile to try this out: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=223188

[glc]

Don't forget to look at this one too:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=249321

This still doesn't address the function of programs that were installed on that drive that "was" F and is now C. That would be my concern.

[casual01]

So far, it sounds like the easiest method would just be to reformat and reinstall xp, seeing it's just a new install anyways.

Anyone have an idea why xp would have assigned the drive f: to begin with? I forgot to mention that the guy had a zip 100 attached as a primary slave at the time he installed the 120 gig as the primary master.

[glc]

He may have had a second hard drive in there at the same time, which had a functioning OS on it. I always disconnect all drives except the main hard drive when I do a fresh install, and do NOT set up additional partitions until it's in Windows, then I use Disk Management to finish the partitioning job. I tell setup to create a single primary partition and leave the rest of the drive unallocated if I plan on breaking the drive up.