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QuantumInteger
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Problems renaming drives in Windows

Sat Nov 24, 2012 4:30 pm

I have been getting some issues with that. Initially, I installed my OS on the SSD. When I loaded up Windows, my 1TB HDD didn't show up. Eventually, I learned that I need to format it using DIsk Management. However, I loaded it as a B drive. Apparently, when I tried to install Diablo 3, it wouldn't let me because the B drive is normally reserved for floppy disks. So I had to remap the drive as the E drive instead. Now everything is a mess. My library folders are now just normal folders. I can't even change the location. For example, I can go into the E drive, open properties on "My Document" and it won't give me the option to remap its location. To show you what I mean, here's a picture:
Image

Because of this, I couldn't move my Downloads, Music, My Documents, etc folders back to my C/User/Mike folder because I wanted to move them back there then relink them to a new location on my E drive. This way, there will be shortcuts for those folders on the C drive but their actual location will be on the E drive. In the end, I had to resorted to doing this:
Image

Another problem that I ran into was some issues with rainmeter. Rainmeter worked well, even after the switch. However, after I restarted my computer a couple of time to install Windows updates, I get this: Image

I can install and reinstall Rainmeter as much time as I want, to my Program Files 2 folder (the one on my E drive), to my Program Files, or even Program Files (x86) and I would get the same error message. I can't install any of my skins now and Rainmeter doesn't boot up at launch automatically anymore, no matter how hard I try to get it to.

My Nexus Mod Manager also doesn't work anymore. It crashes everything I boot it up. Reinstalling doesn't help. I can't uninstall any of the mods I installed on Skyrim using it. I'm thinking of deleting Skyrim and everything inside the folder and reinstall NMM and Skyrim. I'm guessing the mods are preventing the NMM from booting up.

Another issue that I ran across had to do with LA Noir. Essentially, LA Noir tells me that it can't create a save directory and thus can't start. I'm assuming that has to do with my remapped drive.

A quick note but whenever I plugged my external HDD into my computer, it usually takes up the E drive. I mapped my HDD to the E drive for convenience sake because I didn't want it to be behind my external harddrives. Should I have mapped it to something like the G drive instead? I'm assuming all of these issues stemmed from the fact that I mapped it wrong.
 
PenGun
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Re: $1100 High End Build

Sat Nov 24, 2012 7:30 pm

Hoo boy. Although I sympathize with your problems I am reminded how broken windose is. A file system that has drives??? Why would I care about drives? They aren't even actual drives just partitions labeled with letters. A nice *nix file system just maps all the partitions to your file system. A file system that makes sense and has a useful setup. /home/user is where all your stuff is. What could be simpler?

It does not matter how you label the drives, outside of A and B, well windose wants C but can be persuaded to use other letters. It is just smart enough to pick an unused letter for an external drive so you don't have to worry about that.

Someday you will get over screen bling. A lot of us old people just keep a nice black background, it's easy on the eyes among other things.

Oh yeah, as 'root' I am god. My system will do anything I tell it to do. Most of the time I make changes to the windose file system from Linux so it won't give me any lip, as well i trust Linux to actually do what I tell it. Windose has a mind of it's own and will do what it thinks is appropriate. That is why I left that 'vale of tears' when NT 4 came out. I still run windose for games so I have to keep that partition under control and do windosey things on occasion.

Good luck.
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JustAnEngineer
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Re: Problems renaming drives in Windows

Sat Nov 24, 2012 9:16 pm

I'm moving this problem description and the Linux zealot response to the Windows forum.

The original thread is here:
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=84708

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Re: Problems renaming drives in Windows

Sat Nov 24, 2012 10:27 pm

@PenGun - Could you have possibly been any less helpful or more condescending? :roll: As an avid Linux user myself (switched around the time Vista came out and haven't looked back...), I can understand your frustration with "The Windows Way"; but most of the world still runs Windows. As much as I hate to say it, most of the desktop PC world still *needs* to run Windows, and this isn't going to change overnight (if ever).

@QuantumInteger - Given that this is a brand new build, perhaps your best bet at this point is to just reinstall the OS? There shouldn't be too much stuff to redo since you haven't been using it very long. My suggestion is to move your optical drive out of the way (to something like drive V:), so that your hard drives, thumbdrives, etc. can all be C:, D:, E:, etc. And yeah, don't use A: or B: for anything. If you have any network shares, map those further down the alphabet... like M:... so that they are guaranteed to stay separate from any local drives. (Windows XP had an annoying habit of assigning external USB drives to the same drive letters as existing network shares... not sure if Win7 still has this issue.)
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MadManOriginal
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Re: Problems renaming drives in Windows

Sat Nov 24, 2012 10:43 pm

Since the 1TB drive formerly known as B: was recently formatted (I think?), I assume you've got all the stuff you want on it stored elsewhere? Easiest thing to do imo is just erase the incorrect partition in Disk Manager and (re)create the partition as D:, E:, or whatever drive letter you want as long as it isn't A:, B:, or C: ;) then reload all the stuff you want onto it.

An external drive will just temporarily take the next available drive letter after C:. I usually have my permanent internal storage drive as D:, any opticals after that, then any external drives or thumb drives etc take the next letter after the opticals.

Also, if you want to change the default location of your USER folders, try this guide or search for others if you like so you're sure you know what you're doing. I think this is the cause of the issue with some of the games, they are looking for your USER folders in their normal location but they aren't there, once you change the default location of these folders Windows will tell the programs where the folders are.
 
Master Kenobi
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Re: Problems renaming drives in Windows

Sun Nov 25, 2012 7:27 am

Honestly it isn't that big of a deal, ignore the remarks from the Linux crowd, they forgot how the real world operates some time ago.

While it probably would have been easier to just force your Diablo 3 install into the B drive rather than remap it to E, whats done is done. I'm going to assume your Windows install is on C, and that you are simply redirecting everything to E (Games/Music/Pictures/Movies)

Step 1 - Fix the My Docs/Music/Movies/Pics/etc...
Open the windows registry (Start -> Run -> regedit)
Navigate down to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\
Update the various values in here with the correct data. The ones you are most likely after are "My Music", "My Pictures", "My Movies", and "Personal". The one marked Personal is your My Docs folder.

Step 2 - Fix the program files mapping
Take note that this will cause windows to think Program Files is always at this new location, in this case the E drive. IF you don't want this, then don't do this part.
Open the windows registry (Start -> Run -> regedit) *You should probably have it opened still
Drill down to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
Update the keys "ProgramFilesDir" and "ProgramFilesDir (x86)". The x86 folder will only exist if you are using 64-bit Windows.

As for Nexus and Rainmeter, I'm unfamiliar with them and thus do not know exactly why they are being a nuisance. Step 2 may end up fixing them since the windows environment variables will be pointing to the E drive now rather than B or C and they should seamlessly begin working.

As for your external drive, you need to change its letter so that Windows won't try to confuse the two.
Right-Click on My Computer and click "Manage".
Click on Disk Management and find your external (when it is plugged in obviously), Right-Click and select "Change Drive Letter". Switch that thing to F or G so it won't get in the way. From this point on it should always mount with that letter.

*In attempting to map your drive in front of your external hard disks, you actually made the problem worse, it's unfortunate but then again the average windows user isn't running a SSD primary and attempting to load a bunch of their programs into a secondary. You've inadvertently entered the "power user" category of Windows and need to roll up the sleeves for some tweaking, much like the Linux crowd has to do every day to make things "just work". Also, don't let them fool you, doing something like this in most Linux distros/shells would have been just as big of a pain in the arse for you.
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Re: Problems renaming drives in Windows

Sun Nov 25, 2012 8:26 am

Master Kenobi wrote:
Honestly it isn't that big of a deal, ignore the remarks from the Linux crowd, they forgot how the real world operates some time ago.

It's mostly the evangelists that seem to have lost touch. Sometimes I wonder if the evangelist faction of the Linux community might be Linux's own worst enemy... :-?

Master Kenobi wrote:
You've inadvertently entered the "power user" category of Windows and need to roll up the sleeves for some tweaking, much like the Linux crowd has to do every day to make things "just work". Also, don't let them fool you, doing something like this in most Linux distros/shells would have been just as big of a pain in the arse for you.

Well... as you already noted, the PITA aspect of it mostly comes from undoing the lingering wreckage that resulted from mapping the secondary drive to B: (which is why I suggested that an OS re-install might be the path of least resistance, especially given that this is a new build). Normally, dealing with drive mappings isn't a big deal.

Most modern Linux distros allow multiple disks/partitions to be created and assigned to mount points during installation, so it isn't normally a big deal there either. As in this case, things only get messy if you screw things up and are trying to fix it after the fact without doing a scratch re-install.
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Master Kenobi
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Re: Problems renaming drives in Windows

Sun Nov 25, 2012 9:25 am

It's mostly the evangelists that seem to have lost touch. Sometimes I wonder if the evangelist faction of the Linux community might be Linux's own worst enemy... :-?

It certainly doesn't help Linux gain any ground. The other side of that is the Ego problems within the Linux development community. Constantly forking distros and others being abandoned prevents any one from becoming a real standard long enough to reach a maturity point that can even dream of challenging OSX or Windows. In the corporate space Red Hat has made progress to this end, but nobody has managed it within the home user market.
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Re: Problems renaming drives in Windows

Sun Nov 25, 2012 9:35 am

Master Kenobi wrote:
It certainly doesn't help Linux gain any ground. The other side of that is the Ego problems within the Linux development community. Constantly forking distros and others being abandoned prevents any one from becoming a real standard long enough to reach a maturity point that can even dream of challenging OSX or Windows. In the corporate space Red Hat has made progress to this end, but nobody has managed it within the home user market.

I would argue that Ubuntu is finally getting there provided you stick with the LTS (Long Term Support) release, which has a 5-year support cycle. (The non-LTS releases are only supported for 18 months, and IMO really should be treated as betas for the next LTS release, much like how Fedora is effectively a beta platform for RHEL.)
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Master Kenobi
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Re: Problems renaming drives in Windows

Sun Nov 25, 2012 11:48 am

I thought the same of Ubuntu when it rose to the top of the stack and seemed to unite much of the Linux community behind a common banner. Still, it didn't last very long and the recent rise of Mint in the past year, an Ubuntu fork in itself, seems to have toppled what should have been the start of a trend. Distrowatch has had Mint on the top of the stack for many months now and Ubuntu is sliding as a result. To the best of my knowledge Mint was the answer to the many Linux users who hated the new Unity UI for Ubuntu. It gained in popularity and has largely only served to erode the Ubuntu stranglehold as the "go to" distro for newbies. I myself find a preference for Mint w/ Cinnamon over the current Ubuntu.

Linux.... /sigh
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bthylafh
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Re: Problems renaming drives in Windows

Sun Nov 25, 2012 12:16 pm

We're pretty far off topic with the Linux discussion, here.
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LaChupacabra
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Re: Problems renaming drives in Windows

Sun Nov 25, 2012 2:47 pm

It sounds like things went down like this.

1. Install Windows
2. Install 1 TB drive (map as B:)
3. Move your user profile info to B:\Users
4. Attempt to install Diablo (install fails)
5. Change drive letter from B to E
6. Things stop working

Windows obfuscates everything. Good, bad, completely indifferent, it really doesn't matter. It was originally done to make systems more usable. Every computer had it's hard disk at C, and floppy drives at A and B. These decisions were made before multiple drives were a common thing (or at least before USB devices like card readers or external storage). Anyway, to understand what happened you have to understand why things are the way they are.

So what did happen? It sounds like you went in to disk management and changed the letter of B to E. When this happened Windows took you at your word and changed B to E. What this didn't take into account was that you had remapped system information to B.

The fix is going to be more complicated. Depending on how comfortable you are going in and figuring out where everything actually is and backtracking your work, it could be as easy as remapping your 1 TB drive back to B, changing your system data to point back to C, then changing B back to E. That way you can move your large files around (games, media, etc) on your separate drives, and your user profile and system data are on the same drive. If you aren't comfortable going in and doing some pretty tedious work what JBI said reinstall Windows will be your best bet.

If you have any questions, ask. And good luck =)
 
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Re: Problems renaming drives in Windows

Sun Nov 25, 2012 3:01 pm

EDIT BY MOD - Captain Ned - Rule #10: Trolling detrimental to the forums.
Last edited by Captain Ned on Sun Nov 25, 2012 4:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Rule 10 Violation
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Ryu Connor
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Re: Problems renaming drives in Windows

Sun Nov 25, 2012 4:02 pm

LaChupacabra I think has got the right interpretation of events and the best fix.

Windows warns you when you change drive letters there might be consequences, this is one of those situations. When you changed the drive letter you broke the symbolic link Windows had established for your home folders.

3rd party software makes assumptions it shouldn't, like Diablo III complaining about the drive being labeled B. That shouldn't matter, but in the real world programmers are lazy and this is the end result.
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Re: Problems renaming drives in Windows

Fri Dec 07, 2012 10:32 am

Since the Ubuntu/wine discussion is really more about Linux than Windows, I split that tangent out to its own thread in the Linux forum: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=85213
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