I know this is a dumb question, but....

[intellover]

Like I said, I know this is a dumb question, but it just keeps nagging me. I've been building and programming computers for 15 years, so I'm suprised I haven't figured it out yet.

What is the maximum number of drives you can assign in an NT enviroment? Does it go to AA after you use Z? Or does it go to numbers. I tried to find out myself this weekend by assigning drives using Alcohol 120, but after 26 letters it wouldn't assign any more. But I'm told by my MCSE buddy that you can assign 256, I think he said. He said its in hex, so that would make sense, but I'm still not sure. Does anybody have anything about this?

I know its stupid, but you know how it is not knowing something.

[wayout44]

Re: I know this is a dumb question, but....

26 is it in an PATA/SATA enviroment (SCSI enviroment maybe different).

[intellover]

Re: I know this is a dumb question, but....

The question refers to no particular enviroment per se. I just wanted to know what the maximum number of drives Windows can recognize. After you use all the letters, ie A, C, D, etc, what does Windows do next? Double letters? What I'm thinking of doing is seting up a network of 10 computers each with 2 sata hard drives installed in addition to the typical cd-rom and fdd. I don't want to set up all these computers just to find that I can't access all my drives.

I'm somewhat new to the interior workings of Windows, I've always used Unix, and more recently Linux. With the Unix labeling system, I never had to wonder about this problem before, but I've decided to set up a bunch of Windows computers to run a Fazues server. I want it to distribute files in a Bittorrent like manner, which is why I'm not using just one server with a big ass RAID 0/1 setup.

[wayout44]

Re: I know this is a dumb question, but....

A & B are always reserved for floppy drives then C to Z for others and that's the limit, there is no more.

[Yawgm0th]

Re: I know this is a dumb question, but....

Exactly, and I can't see many situations where that many logical drives would be useful anyway.

[tuxfreak]

Re: I know this is a dumb question, but....

silly windows users. how funny it is to label drives A, B, C...

God I love Linux logic :D

anyway, I'm pretty sure Windows goes go to double letters once you reach Z. Honestly, I'm not possitive about that, since I've never seen a Windows box use more than A-M

[Darthtanion]

Re: I know this is a dumb question, but....

They don't go to double letters, even WinXP. Of course that is why we use a Linux server for drive storage and then just map each workstation to needed drives. =)

[tuxfreak]

Re: I know this is a dumb question, but....

oh well, I guess I should have searched first :)

Your computer can use up to 26 drive letters, from A through Z. Use drive letters C through Z for hard disk drives. Drive letters A and B are reserved for floppy disk drives. However, if your computer does not have a floppy disk drive, you can assign these letters to removable drives.

here

[Darthtanion]

Re: I know this is a dumb question, but....

Hmmm... I didn't realize you could assign A and B to removable drives. That is a handy snippet of info.

[amd_man2005]

Re: I know this is a dumb question, but....

Honestly, who would use XP for more than 23 hard drives anyway? :)

[Yawgm0th]

Re: I know this is a dumb question, but....

I could see Windows (we aren't talking about just XP, either...) as being used with that many physical drives, but it just seems unlikely that there's any use for that many logical drives.

[Amd_Lover2004]

Re: I know this is a dumb question, but....

Its cheaper to replace all the drives and buy a few say 300GB drives in a server application... Although I have seen a few server systems runnning windows(various versions) most companies would prefer linux for a server situation. The workstations however would run windows most likely. Our school server runs windows 2000 pro for an example of a windows environment. And the bank I did used a Linux, XP pro setup.

[Morgan_Lander]

Re: I know this is a dumb question, but....

A & B are always reserved for floppy drives then C to Z for others and that's the limit, there is no more.

Actually, if you don't have a floppy drive, you can assign the letters to something else. I'm using it on my networked drive, for example.

[wayout44]

Re: I know this is a dumb question, but....

Actually, if you don't have a floppy drive, you can assign the letters to something else. I'm using it on my networked drive, for example.

As already posted here much earlier ;),

Your computer can use up to 26 drive letters, from A through Z. Use drive letters C through Z for hard disk drives. Drive letters A and B are reserved for floppy disk drives. However, if your computer does not have a floppy disk drive, you can assign these letters to removable drives.

sorry

[intellover]

Re: I know this is a dumb question, but....

So you can only label a max of 26? That sucks. Aw, screw it. I'm setting up my servers using Red Hat. God bless labeling in Linux. Does anyone have any suggestions as to which version of Red Hat is the best to set up a P2P network? Thanks.