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    greystoke0710's Avatar
    greystoke0710 Posts: 2, Reputation: 1
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    #1

    Mar 6, 2008, 03:13 PM
    Windows XP will not let me assign a drive letter
    I have an Iomega 360GB external hard drive (F:)which was working fine until yesterday. My PC was experiencing a lot of errors all of a sudden and after a lot of messing about I had to use System recovery which re-formatted the (C:) drive and reloaded windows.

    Windows is recognizing the external drive but has not assigned it a drive letter again. I have tried to follow instructions from Iomegas own web site to Change Drive Letter and Path for this drive but in Disk Management I cannot edit. When I right click on the icon the only option I am getting is "help" which hasn't been of much use so far.

    I am running Windows XP home edition
    donf's Avatar
    donf Posts: 5,679, Reputation: 582
    Printers & Electronics Expert
    		  
    #2

    Mar 6, 2008, 03:17 PM
    First of all, System Recovery does not cause a reformat of the drive.

    So what else happened? SR, protects the existing data and changes the system information to an earlier date.

    It does ask you to restart the computer, but not reformat anything.
    greystoke0710's Avatar
    greystoke0710 Posts: 2, Reputation: 1
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    #3

    Mar 6, 2008, 03:23 PM
    It was System Recovery NOT system restore. You are right in that System restore does not reformat the drive but System recovery deletes all user files and re loads windows from scratch. I had no option but to use this as windows would not boot up. I was on the phone to a PC helpdesk at the time and this was the only option available by this time unfortunately.
    donf's Avatar
    donf Posts: 5,679, Reputation: 582
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    #4

    Mar 6, 2008, 09:12 PM
    Okay, since tech support told you how to beak it, now they can tell you how to fix it. :)

    After you reloaded your OS, did you return to MS to download any Service packs and fixes? Is your OS at SP2?

    Can you remove the printers software from your system, shut down then come back up and plug in the printer. You should get a "New Equipment found on your screen. The OS will search for the correct driver, then it will ask for a driver, at which point you tell the system you have a disc and go from there.
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