Microsoft KB Archive/307079

= All Available Drive Letters Are Assigned to Unformatted Hard Disks =

Article ID: 307079

Article Last Modified on 1/30/2002

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows XP Professional

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This article was previously published under Q307079



SYMPTOMS
If you set up multiple hard disks on a computer that runs Windows XP, and you do not format the hard disks or assign drive letters to the hard disks, Disk Management may assign drive letters to the hard disks. Depending on the number of unformatted hard disks that are on the computer, Disk Management may assign all of the available drive letters to the unformatted hard disks.

If the number of unformatted hard disks exceeds the number of available drive letters, Disk Management does not assign drive letters to the unformatted hard drives.



CAUSE
This behavior occurs because Mountmgr assigns drive letters to recognized partitions, even if they are not formatted, so that you can issue a format d: command. However, this method also automatically assigns all available drive letters if there are many partitions, so that no more drive letters are available.



STATUS
This behavior is by design.

Keywords: kbnofix kbenv kbprb KB307079

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