Drive Letters Assigned In Disk Administrator Disappear On Restart

ID: Q158362

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.5, 3.51, 4.0
Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.5, 3.51, 4.0

SYMPTOMS

A drive letter is assigned to a SCSI device in Disk Administrator. The drive is accessible in File Manager, but after you restart your computer, the drive letter is no longer visible in File Manager.

In Disk Administrator, the SCSI drive is shown as formatted with either FAT or NTFS but the drive letter that was assigned earlier is now gone. The drive letter no longer appears for this drive in File Manager.

CAUSE

This problem is caused by one of the following:

An IDE device attached to the computer is the boot device AND where the SCSI device does not contain the operating system files AND where the SCSI device is configured for BOOT in the Control Panel Devices tool.

-or-

On Compaq systems that require a Compaq SSD, drive letters assigned by Disk Administrator may not be retained after rebooting the machine if the latest Compaq SSD has not been applied.

RESOLUTION

WARNING: If your system boots from SCSI devices this problem should NOT be occurring and you should NOT execute the following series of steps. Performing these steps may cause the system to become non-bootable.

Click the Start button, point to Settings, and click Control Panel.

Double-click the Devices icon, and change the SCSI device driver from a Startup setting of BOOT to a Startup setting of SYSTEM. For example, if using an Adaptec 2940 series SCSI controller, set the AIC78xx device by clicking the Startup button, selecting SYSTEM, rather than BOOT, and then clicking OK.

If running Windows NT V3.5x, then change the SCSIDISK device driver from Startup setting of BOOT to a Startup setting of SYSTEM.

Close Control Panel.

Open Disk Administrator, select the SCSI drive, and then assign a drive letter. Close Disk Administrator.

Restart the computer. Verify that the drive letter still exists in File Manager.

-or-

Download and install the latest appropriate SSD from Compaq. Information on and locations of SSDs may be found on Compaq's ftp site:

ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/allfiles.txt

MORE INFORMATION

The products mentioned here are manufactured by vendors independent of Microsoft; we make no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding these products' performance or reliability.

Additional query words: system device


Keywords          : kbenv kbsetup ntboot ntdriver ntfilesys NTSrvWkst 
Version           : WinNT:3.51,4.0
Platform          : winnt 
Issue type        : kbprb

Last Reviewed: January 27, 1999