which is the "C" drive?
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Posted by Geoff Cox on July 6, 2008, 5:59 am
Please log in for more thread options Paul, the above sounds terrifying! >The C: drive is not related to the SATA port. Your C: could be
>connected to SATA 0 or to SATA 1. Perhaps looking at the drive >serial number in the BIOS, or with a utility, and looking for a >sticker on the outside of the drive, with the same information, >would be another way to do it. I have one drive, that does have >the serial number printed on the outside. And a more recent >drive from the same company, where there is no serial number >on the outside. I bet that saved a whole penny of manufacturing >cost, by not printing the serial number on it. And makes it >real easy to determine if the warranty is still valid, if that >drive dies on me (fat lot of good a serial number stored on >the platters is going to do, if the drive fails). thanks for this - will look in the BIOS setup. Cheers Geoff >
> Paul | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by Joel on July 6, 2008, 10:03 am
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> thanks for this - will look in the BIOS setup. In general, BIOS setting could be a useful place to find out the drive letter. But it's usually better if it has 2 *different* drives, or if both drives are exactly the same then it may not be easy to tell the difference. Example if both drives are WD SATA 500GB, same model and everything. > Cheers
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Posted by Geoff Cox on July 6, 2008, 6:28 am
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>The C: drive is not related to the SATA port. Your C: could be
>connected to SATA 0 or to SATA 1. Perhaps looking at the drive >serial number in the BIOS, or with a utility, and looking for a >sticker on the outside of the drive, with the same information, Paul, I couldn't find any ref to hard disk serial numbers in the BIOS but there was this info. IDE Channel 0 Master -[ the DVDRW] IDE Channel 0 Slave - [the DVD] IDE Channel 1 Master - [S_ATA1-Hitachi etc] IDE Channel 1 Slave - [S_ATA2-Hitachi etc] (NB the S_ATA1 and S_ATA2 above) also x SATA Port 0 configure as IDE Sec. Master SATA Port 1 configure as IDE Sec. Slave Looking inside the PC case I can see that SATA0 socket is connected to the top hard disk and SATA1 socket is connected to the bottom hard disk Does above tell you whether the top hard disk is the C: drive? Cheers Geoff | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by Joel on July 6, 2008, 10:08 am
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>
> >The C: drive is not related to the SATA port. Your C: could be
> >connected to SATA 0 or to SATA 1. Perhaps looking at the drive > >serial number in the BIOS, or with a utility, and looking for a > >sticker on the outside of the drive, with the same information, >
> Paul, > > I couldn't find any ref to hard disk serial numbers in the BIOS but > there was this info. > > IDE Channel 0 Master -[ the DVDRW] > IDE Channel 0 Slave - [the DVD] > > IDE Channel 1 Master - [S_ATA1-Hitachi etc] > IDE Channel 1 Slave - [S_ATA2-Hitachi etc] > > (NB the S_ATA1 and S_ATA2 above) > > also > > x SATA Port 0 configure as IDE Sec. Master > SATA Port 1 configure as IDE Sec. Slave > > Looking inside the PC case I can see that > > SATA0 socket is connected to the top hard disk and > SATA1 socket is connected to the bottom hard disk > > Does above tell you whether the top hard disk is the C: drive? Well, back the the general information many others already suggested. 1. Port-0 has much more chance to be drive C than any others. That's it! I also would suggest to forget about the whole thing, but give it a very last try one for all. 1. Unplug the drive on Port-1 2. Reboot the system (you may be in BIOS setting menu) 3. If it boots fine then you make the right decision to unpluf Drive D 4. If it won't boot or saying no OS (assuming you boot from drive C) then we are all wrong. Or drive C is on Port-1 That's it! and you the only one with the answer, and it won't be too complicate to unplug the connector. > Cheers
> > Geoff | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by Ian D on July 6, 2008, 1:02 pm
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>
>>The C: drive is not related to the SATA port. Your C: could be
>>connected to SATA 0 or to SATA 1. Perhaps looking at the drive >>serial number in the BIOS, or with a utility, and looking for a >>sticker on the outside of the drive, with the same information, >
> Paul, > > I couldn't find any ref to hard disk serial numbers in the BIOS but > there was this info. > > IDE Channel 0 Master -[ the DVDRW] > IDE Channel 0 Slave - [the DVD] > > IDE Channel 1 Master - [S_ATA1-Hitachi etc] > IDE Channel 1 Slave - [S_ATA2-Hitachi etc] > > (NB the S_ATA1 and S_ATA2 above) > > also > > x SATA Port 0 configure as IDE Sec. Master > SATA Port 1 configure as IDE Sec. Slave > > Looking inside the PC case I can see that > > SATA0 socket is connected to the top hard disk and > SATA1 socket is connected to the bottom hard disk > > Does above tell you whether the top hard disk is the C: drive? > > Cheers > > Geoff The common convention is that Drive 0 connects to the lowest numbered SATA connector, but it's no guarantee. You've already determined that your boot drive, C:, is Drive 0. Something in you original post that puzzles me, is that you said booting off D: made the files inaccessible. If a bootable drive is not present, the BIOS boot process should give you an error message and suspend. If you do have boot files on D:, the best thing to do is rename them so that if the system does try to boot from D: it will give files not found errors and halt the boot process, therefore no harm done, and you know which HD is C:. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
>
>Download a copy of HDTach.
>
>http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach
>
>When it starts up, there will be a menu with hard drives in it.
>The drive letter (C:) is shown to the left of the rest of the
>drive identity information.
>
>Start the Quick Bench running, by clicking the "Run Test" button.
>When you get to the "Random Access Test", the head on the disk
>will fly around, and the drive will shake a bit. The drive with
>the shakes, will in that case, be the C: drive (because you selected
>C: from the test menu).
>
>Why isn't the test foolproof ? Because the vibration shakes the
>whole frame of the computer case. I tried my C: drive and
>my E: drive, and I could feel the shaking in the C: drive in
>both cases. So it'll be a judgment call, as to which one is
>doing the shaking, during the Random Access test.