2nd CD Drive Loses Drive Letter Assignment At Bootup

This is my first post on this board so please forgive any posting violations, if any. Here's my problem:

At every system boot, My 2nd (slave) CD drive loses the assigned drive management drive letter (R) and dynamically assigns the first available letter (I).

This problem began recently for unknown reasons on my existing several year old WinXP Pro SP2 system.

There were no changes to my BIOS settings. Also, the problem does not occur on my multiboot Windows Millennium system nor on my Vista RC1 test system on the same physical system.

After changing the drive letter in "Disk Management" to "R" and verifying the change in the MountedDevices entry in the registry, the assignment only lasts until the next bootup.

All my hard drive letter assignments and my 1st CD (actually a DVD drive) retain their drive letter assignments without any problems.

Any suggestions on fixing this problem would be most appreciated.

 

Try changing the jumper configuration. If both drives are on the one cable, check one is not set to CS and the other master or slave.

Some older CD drives preferred being set as Master and early CD writers set as Slave because this was the natural way they were being set up then. It may not fit your preference for drive lettering, but may make it "stick ".

Matt

 

mattman,

Thank you for your reply.

The settings that I have on both the CD drives are the same as what they have been for the last 2 years (or more). I'm fairly sure they are set to master and slave, rather than using cable select.

Since my pc is in a cabinet on carpeting, it is a fairly big deal to put casters under the cabinet, move the cabinet (200+ lbs), disconnect all the cables, and then finally remove the pc and open it up. This is followed by putting it all back together and verifying everything still works. I try to do this as infrequently as possible.

I suspect the cause is due to ongoing installs and uninstalls. In particular, I'm suspicious of recently upgrading Nero and using its virtual CD drive facility on the old version. This virtual CD activity was done just prior to the uninstall, which I had never before used. The old Nero version uninstall went clean and the virtual CD definition was removed. I haven't used the virtual CD facility on the new version, so there is no entry in Device Manager for it.

Also, I tried deleting the MountedDevices entry in the registry, and let it be recreated when re-booting WinXP. This was followed by changing the default assigned drive letters to my preferred letters. The result was the same (i.e. all assigned drive letters stick, except the slave CD drive).

Also, as I stated earlier, WinMe and Vista RC1 do not have this problem.

I may try a clean install of WinXP in another partiton just to see what happens, when I get the time. Fortunately, this is really a pretty minor problem, and I can live with it.

 

Start by resetting the Upper and Lower filter drivers:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060/

Reboot and test. If no joy:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320553/en-us

For the drive enumeration to be static, XP has to believe that the CD Drive is capable of supporting AutoRun / AutoPlay, and is writeable.

If it is convinced that the drive is a read-only removable device, the drive assignment can float:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q825668

 

did you try a system restore?

if this problem just started, and after a number of installs and stuff, you might want to try doing a system restore [from windows and not from the boot up option] from a date when you are sure the problem didn't exist.
doing a system restore has bailed me out of trouble a couple of times.

 

a shot in the dark...

Do you have TweakUI installed? If so, check the section for drives and make sure 'R' is an 'allowed' drive letter.

B

 

I tried deleting the LowerFilters value in registry entry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}. There was no UpperFilters value. NoGo.

I then retried the above
and also deleting all the CD entries under key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
and also the MountedDevices entry
and also both CDs in Device Manager.

After re-booting, letting WinXP find the CD drives and install them again, re-assigning the drive letters, and re-booting a second time, still NoGo.

I have System Restore disabled, but I take periodic backups. I can't begin to tell you how many times I have been saved by restoring from backup.

My last backup has the problem, but my next to last backup is OK.

This rules out my hunch that the Nero upgrade caused the problem, since that was done AFTER my last backup. That only leaves 17 other changes to my system in the 5 days between my next to last backup and my last backup, when the problem began! None of these changes seem in any way related or likely to have caused the problem, but obviously one (or more) of them did.

I will eventually isolate the problem by re-doing all the changes one at a time, unless I find a fix for the problem.

No, I do not have Tweakui installed, but drive letter "R" was valid before and is still valid on my restored system.

Thanks, everyone for your assistance!

 

Problem Solved

Of the 17 system changes, I found the problem on change # 5. Upgrading Zone Alarm Pro to version 6.5 is the culprit. I then confirmed the conclusion by uninstalling Zone Alarm Pro, and voila, problem gone.

I then reconfirmed the resolution by finding the following internet post:

http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=gen&message.id=37443

Apparently, it is an issue that is known by Zone Alarm Tech Support, and it will be corrected in the next release. In the meantime, I will fall back to version 6.1.

Again, thanks everyone who offered their time and tried to help!

 

Hello joseguerra,

Thanks for the info on ZAP v6.5 - much appreciated

Jut tried it, also confirm that it does indeed happen - it is the 2nd optical and happens if, in my case, a new usb device is plugged in. Goes from Y to F.

As long as I know what the problem is, I'll just wait for the next version.

Does not happen on my other dual boot config XP that is running Kerio as the firewall.

Regards - Charles