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changing drive letter


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#1
smachohan

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I have an old laptop which does not have a floppy drive built in however drive letter A is allocated to it. If I attach an external drive it gets drive letter E as C is allocated to hard drive and D is cd-rom drive.
In order to make a clean install of operating system, I need to use floppy to boot the system, but when I try to make a boot disk, drive A opens up and not E where my floppy drive is attached. I have tried all tricks but the original drive letters allocated to floppy i.e. A and B cannot be allocated to external drive.
Only a geek can go after this and solve the puzzle! Anyone?
pl come back with a tried and tested solution.
tks in advance.

syed
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#2
Samm

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Welcome to G2G

The reason you cannot assign letters A or B to the external floppy drive, is because these 2 letters are reserved for floppy drives on the internal floppy controller only. That doesn't mean you cannot boot from your external drive however.
Which interface is your external floppy using? (i.e USB, PCMCIA etc)
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#3
smachohan

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Welcome to G2G

The reason you cannot assign letters A or B to the external floppy drive, is because these 2 letters are reserved for floppy drives on the internal floppy controller only. That doesn't mean you cannot boot from your external drive however.
Which interface is your external floppy using? (i.e USB, PCMCIA etc)



Welcome to G2G

The reason you cannot assign letters A or B to the external floppy drive, is because these 2 letters are reserved for floppy drives on the internal floppy controller only. That doesn't mean you cannot boot from your external drive however.
Which interface is your external floppy using? (i.e USB, PCMCIA etc)



hi samm
tks for the reply.
i am using usb and you may guide me step by step at your convenience.....remember i am a novice.
from your reply i understand you diagnosed it already.....will wait for prescription
tks again
smachohan
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#4
Samm

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Hi smachohan

Probably the best way of doing this, given that you're a novice, is if you can tell me what the make & model of the laptop is. This way I can find out exactly what we are dealing with here & can therefore help you more effectively.

Samm
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#5
smachohan

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hi samm
tks for your time.
it is a sharp actius pc a-100 and runs win 98, has no floppy or cd rom drive.
appreciate your help.....and pl do it at your convenience.
rgds
syed
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#6
Samm

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Hi
This is going to be fun - I never even realised Sharp made laptops! Also, they no longer supply the manual or any kind of info about the particular one as it's too old.

So I'm going to base my instructions on a manual I've obtained for a newer model of Sharp laptop. This may mean of course that I'm wildly inaccurate so bare with me!

First thing to try :
Power the laptop on & the instant you get any sort of display appearing on screen, press the F2 key a few times. This 'should' get you ino the system setup. If you manage it, then try & find the boot menu. You should see a list of devices to boot from numbered 1 to 3. Let me know what you see listed there (normally hard disk, floppy etc) & if it gives you the chance to select any other devices that aren't currently listed (e.g from a drop down menu or similar).

Also have a rumage around for any settings pertaining to the USB controller. Let me know what settings there are that mention USB in any way.


When you're done, quit the setup utility without saving any changes
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#7
smachohan

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hi samm
i cud go into setup and even change boot order to: floppy drive, cd-rom and hard disk, yet when i restart it, it recognises external floppy drive as f drive as my hard disk is c, d and e.
the a drive is shown as not available.
in the setup i did not find option to change drive letters for floppy drive.
that cud possibly be in the bios, which i dont know how to access and i know it is dangerous.
on usb also there was no option except to enable or disable, however after starting windows, i went to system and device manager and under usb controller two controllers appear, (1) intel 82371ab/eb pci to usb universal host controller and (2) usb root hub.
presently my external cd/dvd is also not working but that comes later....if system cud boot from floppy ,i will reinstall windows and wud start struggling with cd/dvd rom where there seems to be a problem with irq.....see i am learning.
what do i do next
rgds
syed
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#8
Samm

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Hi there

Apologies for the delay in replying, I must have missed your last post.

Do already have a bootable floppy disk ready or do you need to make one?
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#9
dsenette

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how old is this laptop? the only reason i ask...is that...there may not be an option with it's motherboard to boot from usb..which is what you're needing to do...

Samm- i too looked at the sharp website for any reference on this thing and...well they don't seem to have any more info on it..like you said....that's why i think the mobo is a little old to support booting from usb...just a thought though
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#10
Samm

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dsenette - that same thought has crossed my mind also!
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#11
dsenette

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figured it had..you smarty you!! :tazz:
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#12
smachohan

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hi samm
this is what i did........i disabled the original floppy drive in the device manager and attached external floppy to usb and restarted computer.....and now my external floppy is drive A, however,i think computer does not boot from usb drive.
i will experiment further and let you know for further advice.
thanks for all your attention.
rgds
syed
smachohan
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