Accidentally renamed c drive   

After reading Steve Bass's article in the July issue of PCWorld, I attempted 
to rename a couple of my drives so I would stop getting error messages when 
using my jump drive (“no drive available”). I followed Steve’s directions 
going to diskmgmt.msc and right clicking on two drives,  renaming them z: and 
y: Almost immediately I saw icons begin to disappear and I knew I was in 
trouble. I could no longer do a right click to rename the drives back and I 
finally decided to reboot, hoping it would refresh itself and I would be 
okay. No such luck. From what I can tell c: turned into y: But I didn't think 
Windows would let you rename c: There are two other partitions on the drive 
that were created by Windows, somehow, not long after I bought the system 
(Dell Optiplex 8400). I remember wondering at the time how I suddenly ended 
up with an e: and (I think) g: when they weren't there before. Apparently 
Windows will partition the drive if you hit some kind of keystroke 
combination (don't remember now what it is but when I researched it then I 
realized that is what happened). Anyway--maybe one of those partitions had 
files on it that Windows needs to load and I renamed those instead of c: 
Regardless, my problem now is I can’t get Windows to load. The computer boots 
to the Windows splash screen (dark blue bands on top and bottom, pale blue in 
center with Microsoft Windows XP logo) and  hangs up there and won't go any 
further. I’ve run Recovery Console from the Recovery CD, and I’ve also tried 
to do a reinstall of Windows. Both failed because they said there was no 
drive present. But using the same Recovery CD I ran a systems check that put 
my system through all the tests and it passed every one of them - including 
the hard drive tests. So I took the hard drive out and put it in an external 
case and plugged it into my laptop. I can see all of my files there, and I'm 
backing them up now. But I would REALLY like to get my main computer going 
again without having to FDISK the drive and reload all those programs. Since 
I can access the hard drive with the laptop, are there some files I can 
delete so I can run Recovery Console again and it will complete the reinstall?

date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 10:18:02 -0700   author:   CPeterson

Re: Accidentally renamed c drive   

Forum here
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Hard-Drive-Problems-2113/Rename-hard-drive-Windows.htm

-- 
Mary Sauer
http://msauer.mvps.org/

"CPeterson"  wrote in message 
news:1FAE0A85-86EB-4E0F-B6BB-811DE7C8A53B@microsoft.com...
> After reading Steve Bass's article in the July issue of PCWorld, I attempted
> to rename a couple of my drives so I would stop getting error messages when
> using my jump drive ("no drive available"). I followed Steve's directions
> going to diskmgmt.msc and right clicking on two drives,  renaming them z: and
> y: Almost immediately I saw icons begin to disappear and I knew I was in
> trouble. I could no longer do a right click to rename the drives back and I
> finally decided to reboot, hoping it would refresh itself and I would be
> okay. No such luck. From what I can tell c: turned into y: But I didn't think
> Windows would let you rename c: There are two other partitions on the drive
> that were created by Windows, somehow, not long after I bought the system
> (Dell Optiplex 8400). I remember wondering at the time how I suddenly ended
> up with an e: and (I think) g: when they weren't there before. Apparently
> Windows will partition the drive if you hit some kind of keystroke
> combination (don't remember now what it is but when I researched it then I
> realized that is what happened). Anyway--maybe one of those partitions had
> files on it that Windows needs to load and I renamed those instead of c:
> Regardless, my problem now is I can't get Windows to load. The computer boots
> to the Windows splash screen (dark blue bands on top and bottom, pale blue in
> center with Microsoft Windows XP logo) and  hangs up there and won't go any
> further. I've run Recovery Console from the Recovery CD, and I've also tried
> to do a reinstall of Windows. Both failed because they said there was no
> drive present. But using the same Recovery CD I ran a systems check that put
> my system through all the tests and it passed every one of them - including
> the hard drive tests. So I took the hard drive out and put it in an external
> case and plugged it into my laptop. I can see all of my files there, and I'm
> backing them up now. But I would REALLY like to get my main computer going
> again without having to FDISK the drive and reload all those programs. Since
> I can access the hard drive with the laptop, are there some files I can
> delete so I can run Recovery Console again and it will complete the reinstall?

date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 14:27:02 -0400   author:   Mary Sauer

Re: Accidentally renamed c drive   

Note that "...("no drive available"). ..." is not the same as no drive 
letter available.  Windows provides for 26 drive letters. Inserting and 
removing drives will result in generating some unusal drive letters.

Drive "Z" (sometimes "X") is "reserved" by Windows for assignment to 
network, mapped or RAM drives.

Windows does not permit changing the designation of the system or boot 
volume - on the majority of computers the C dive is both.

Possible options: 1. If you hve access to another computer check Help and 
Support for info on using Diskpart from a command line prompt.  2. There are 
two repair options - first the Recovery Console and the second is a repair 
of an installed OS.  Boot from the XP CD - pass on the recovery console 
option - setup will proceed and notify you if it finds a current OS 
installation - if so it will list it and offer the option to repair - the 
repair is actually an upgrade installation requiring the product key.

Note: If setup does not "find" the installed OS - NG.




"CPeterson"  wrote in message 
news:1FAE0A85-86EB-4E0F-B6BB-811DE7C8A53B@microsoft.com...
> After reading Steve Bass's article in the July issue of PCWorld, I 
> attempted
> to rename a couple of my drives so I would stop getting error messages 
> when
> using my jump drive ("no drive available"). I followed Steve's directions
> going to diskmgmt.msc and right clicking on two drives,  renaming them z: 
> and
> y: Almost immediately I saw icons begin to disappear and I knew I was in
> trouble. I could no longer do a right click to rename the drives back and 
> I
> finally decided to reboot, hoping it would refresh itself and I would be
> okay. No such luck. From what I can tell c: turned into y: But I didn't 
> think
> Windows would let you rename c: There are two other partitions on the 
> drive
> that were created by Windows, somehow, not long after I bought the system
> (Dell Optiplex 8400). I remember wondering at the time how I suddenly 
> ended
> up with an e: and (I think) g: when they weren't there before. Apparently
> Windows will partition the drive if you hit some kind of keystroke
> combination (don't remember now what it is but when I researched it then I
> realized that is what happened). Anyway--maybe one of those partitions had
> files on it that Windows needs to load and I renamed those instead of c:
> Regardless, my problem now is I can't get Windows to load. The computer 
> boots
> to the Windows splash screen (dark blue bands on top and bottom, pale blue 
> in
> center with Microsoft Windows XP logo) and  hangs up there and won't go 
> any
> further. I've run Recovery Console from the Recovery CD, and I've also 
> tried
> to do a reinstall of Windows. Both failed because they said there was no
> drive present. But using the same Recovery CD I ran a systems check that 
> put
> my system through all the tests and it passed every one of them - 
> including
> the hard drive tests. So I took the hard drive out and put it in an 
> external
> case and plugged it into my laptop. I can see all of my files there, and 
> I'm
> backing them up now. But I would REALLY like to get my main computer going
> again without having to FDISK the drive and reload all those programs. 
> Since
> I can access the hard drive with the laptop, are there some files I can
> delete so I can run Recovery Console again and it will complete the 
> reinstall?

date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 16:26:14 -0400   author:   AJR