Incorrect hard disk icon [Resolved]

I've recently installed a new hard disk.

Previously i had one hard disk (C:), and a CD-RW drive (D:) and a DVD drive (E:)

Now i've set up my new hard disk to be D:, the CDRW to be E: and the DVD to be F:

Trouble is, windows still shows the D: as a cdrom when viewing my computer.

I can still use it as a hard disk, and when i click properties the HD properties screen shows.

Also, when i view the d drive, on the left bar i get the 'video tasks' options, even though there's nothing on the HD.

What's going on?!?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

did you change it in BIOS? Windows should automatically detect drive changes, i think.

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Originally Posted by dglienna

did you change it in BIOS? Windows should automatically detect drive changes, i think.

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I'm not sure what you mean, when i looked in the bios it detected the new HD, so i let windows boot up.

I'll look in tthe bios later, when i'm sober.


happy new year!

I've just checked and the hard disks / CDroms are detected as follows:

primary master: Old hard disk
primary slave: New hard disk
secondary master: CD-RW
secondary slave: DVD-Rom

The jumper on the new HD is set as 'cable select', and i put it on the same cable as the old HD.

Is this all ok?

it seems like it is. can you click on each device in BIOS to have it auto-detect? is there anywhere that you can assign drive letters to devices? how about a boot order? lastly, you could try to make the hd's master and the cd/dvd slaves. not sure that is would make a difference, though.

I have set everything to auto-detect.
I'll check the boot order, and for the option to assign drive letters, although i'm not sure if it's there.

Do i need to change any of the cabling to make both HDs masters (i'm guessing i do)?

Boot order is CD-Rom, Floppy drive, HD-0.
There's no option to assign drive letters.

EDIT: I'm thinking that the way i've set up the cables is wrong, since my CD-RW drive (that was D: and is the secondary master) isn't detecting cds i insert.

you could try just switching the drive letters.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...307844&sd=tech

Thanks for your continued help.

I've tried that and it seems as though if i set the drive letter to be anything that was previously a CD (i.e. D: or E:) then it shows the wrong icon.

This doesn't however solve the problem of not being able to use my CD-RW drive.

try changing the driver for the device. something may have gotten hosed.

I couldn't find any updated drivers (manufacture's site didn't have them, and i couldn't find them elsewhere).
I tried removing the hardware then scanning for changes, but i still get the same problem.

what are the properties in Disk Management? Which one is 0,1,2,3? I think the driver could be corrupted. Something doesn't sound right.

Disk 0 is my older hard disk (currently drive C:)
Disk 1 is my new HD (2 partitions mapped to drives P and D) - P: is for my windows page file.

Cd-Rom 0 is my DVD rom (drive F:)
Cd-Rom 6 (!?!) is my CD-RW (drive E:)

I would boot without any CD (0 & 6) That way the system may fix itself. I don't think there should be 2 device 0's. Boot into safe mode, and then power down and boot normally to see if you have 2 drives. (make sure things are right in BIOS, also)
Then, replace the two CD's, and check BIOS before rebooting a final time.

Windows can't handle more than 4 IDE devices at once. That's why 6 looks odd. Maybe something is left over from before.

a dirty fix would be to edit
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\DriveIcons\~DRIVE LETTER~\DefaultIcon\(Default)

simply put the path to an icon there

I physically disconnected both CD drives, then booted into safe mode.

The old hard disk was disk 0, then new one was disk 1.

I then re-connected the cd drives, checked the bios (which detected them ok) and booted back into windows.

Now the old disk is disk 0, the new one is disk 1 the DVDrom is 0 and the cdrw is 1.

I still have the same problem. :(

Thanks for your help :) :)

are the drive letters right? c,d,e,f?

Device Manager Properties right?

Hardware supported?

Maybe try to repair windows?

sounds odd. You click on the d: drive (hd) and it thinks it's a DVD?

Yeah, the drives are c, d, e and f.
Device manager looks fine, hardware's all detected ok, and reoprts working correctly.

Not sure what you mean by hardware supported (but everything is detected by windows/BIOS as what it actually is, so i think that's ok).

I can't do a windows repair at the moment, because i don't have the XP CD (and i can't get it until i go back to uni, in a week).

Windows seems to treat the HD as a HD in terms of writing files to it, reporting it's size etc. (i can rightclick on it (a CD's icon) and get it's correct properties).

One thing i've recently noticed is that it displays as a hard disk very briefly, then my CD-RW drive spins up, and once it's detected a CD (or not) the icon changes to depict an empty CD drive.

Did you manually change the drive letter when you put the new drive in or did Windows automatically put it as D:?

Seems odd there because Windows usually tacks it to the next available drive letter.

There's no point in looking in the BIOS for letting for drives, because the BIOS doesn't handle that. Don't change the drives around because the way you have them now is for optimal speed.

I'm not sure if it matters either, but try setting the jumpers to Master and Slave, not cable select. I've never used cable select, but it may be a problem is it's not assigning the master/slave properly.

I did manually change the drive letter, because since windows already assigned drives c, d and e to my old HD, CDRW and DVD respectivly.

When the new HD was put in it assigned it to drive f, which i didn't want, so assigned the new one to drive g, then moved the DVD rom to F, and the CDRW to E. Then i moved the new HD to drive D.

Thanks for the info about the BIOS.

I've already set the jumpers up manually (incase that was the problem), but thanks for the advice.

You could try reinstalling all the drives in question. If you havn't got anything on the new drive, select the CD burner, DVD-ROM and the new HDD in device manager and uninstall them all. Reboot and then let Windows install them all again. With a bit of luck, Windows should put them in the correct order, and they should all work properly.

Thanks, i'll try that.

P.S. Why would it matter if i had things on the new HD? I'm not going to lose the data am I?

No, I put that in there because i was gonna mention something else, but i dropped it at the last minute, it should be right.

I didn't know that you changed the letters. I also thought that you did the un-install before, but, hey, it can't hurt.

Sorry, i should've said that i changed the drives before.

I just tried removing the new HD and 2 cd drives, then restarting windows.
I still get the exact same problem though. :(


I think i'm gonna end up formatting my old HD, and reinstalling windows. :(

Have you checked the Hardware Compatibility List? (HCL) It may not be compatible.

Thanks for the advice. I've checked and it's listed as compatible.

Re-installed windows - works ok now. :D

That usually solves most problems. ;)


TGIF!