Operating system on Drive G: Could this be problematic?

[Black Panther]

So my ever-untrusting dad bought a pre-built for our company, installed with OS and everything, just before Xmas.

During the hols, a guy came and installed financial software, together with networking. He didn't install anything on the pc in question, just on another pc which he networked...
By that time I still hadn't seen anything.

Now yesterday I went to work after the hols break - in a quick glimpse I noted that very weirdly that on the new pc the HDD was Drive G and XP was installed there. There were also 3 or 4 virtual drives installed, for what purpose I don't know (and am very curious about). I mean in the 'My Computer' there is Floppy Disk A (there's no floppy drive but I can disable that from the bios if it bothers me), then there's the HDD Drive G, the 'real' ODD I don't remember the letter and a further 3 or 4 more virtual ODD drives... I just can't understand wtf got installed on this pc...

I realised all this because I went to work, plugged in my pendrive and got zilch, and did some checking out.
I went to Disk manager from the Device manager and saw that my pendrive was being read as Drive C.
So I went back in 'My Computer' and also noted that the Network Drive was also Drive C.

I realised that there must be some conflict even though I'm not well versed in networking...(I mean the networked drive is C on the parent pc but I don't understand a heck as to whether it has to appear as C on the receiving pc or not?) however I assumed that changing the USB drive letter would do the trick...

Now I didn't want to meddle with the Network Drive otherwise I might not be able to work at all from the pc, moreso since dad just bought this pc before xmas, moreso since I didn't create the network myself and even moreso since my dad's abroad and I know that if something that I personally do happens to go wrong there'd be the third world war over here...
Notwithstanding, I renamed the Pendrive C drive to drive M, praying that if the network got a problem I'd hopefully solve it by re-naming as it had been previously or calling the tech who installed the financial software on the other pc and created the network in the first place.
But *whew* all worked fine.

Nonetheless I put myself in the shoes of a person who normally wouldn't be doing this kind of stuff... so I renamed the Pendrive back to Drive C and called the place where dad bought the pc from and played naive.

Me: Hello, we just bought a pc from you and it can't read my pendrive even though I've tried both 2 front ports and 2 back ports.
Him: Did you try another pendrive.
Me: Yes.
Him: Did you try same pendrive in another pc?
Me: Yes.
Him: Wow that looks bad.
Me: hmmmm
Him: It's best you bring the pc over, we might need to change the motherboard
Me: Listen, I called because I assumed there was something simple which I might be overlooking...
Him: I can try giving you instructions on the phone but I'm sure it'd be very difficult for you to understand what I'm saying...
Me: Well, can't we just try at least?
Him: OK take a printer, webcam, whatever and stick it into USB so we see if it works.
Me: I don't have anything here...
Him: C'mon don't you chat and webcam at work?
Me: *makes a silly lol* no honestly I got plenty of usb stuff at home...
Pause...
Me: I'll bring stuff from home and check it tomorrow then?
Him: Go into disk management (control panel, device manager, storage etc etc) Do you see your pendrive there?
Me: Yup, it's Drive C.
Loooong pause.....
Him: That can't be.
Look again.
Me: I have the monitor in front of my eyes, Pendrive is Drive C and XP Pro is on drive G.
Him: That's impossible.
Me: Hmmm, shall I take a screenshot? (I was itching to tell him I wasn't blind or anything but thought against it...)
Him: That's bad. Verrry bad. Very bad of the guy who installed your XP, installed the financial software, done the networking stuff and mucked all this up. You have to bring the pc back here for a re-install.
Me: Uhhh, we bought the pc from your company already installed with the OS... ahem?

*** very long pause ***

Him: The OS can never be installed on a drive which isn't called drive C. It will create problems. Some tech of our company made a mistake in naming the HDD Drive G, I admit that and we'll correct the issue free of charge in this case. Sure your pc might work fine for now, but you might install programs on it and find they don't work because they assume that the OS is on Drive C.
Me: OK, I'll speak with the other directors of the company (which is the professional form of saying 'dad' ) and be contacting you on this manner.

Now what I would like to know - Is it really that important for the OS to be installed on Drive C or is this guy just creating a storm out of a teacup?
I'm nearly persuaded that he's genuine, after all he doesn't want to charge any money... but on the other hand he's just an employee so he still gets paid whether he charges money or not...

However for our work to go missing a computer it's just not practical, unless what this tech is saying really is so problematic.

So, if there's no problem at all I'd just leave stuff as it is and rename the USB back to Drive M.

So - what are your views on this?

[spearman914]

Lol. The drive letter doesn't mean anything. Format a partition then u could change the drive letter via disk management. Tell this to ur dad. And saying having an os on a drive that is not c will cause problems is fail. lol

[Polarman]

[EviLZeD]

Once i installed xp on d: drive only problem i had was programs default installation directory was in c: so i had to keep changing the installation directory (my second hard drive without the os was showing up as C: )

[Fastmix]

Most software default to c: so yes any other letter could cause problems.

[Black Panther]

Originally Posted by spearman914

Lol. The drive letter doesn't mean anything. Format a partition then u could change the drive letter via disk management. Tell this to ur dad. And saying having an os on a drive that is not c will cause problems is fail. lol

Lol exactly as I suspected.
Really I'm not going to tell any of this to my dad since he doesn't know anything since he's out of the country AND for sure he'd be believing the other tech not me..

I never have been in a situation where the OS wasn't installed on drive C and hence also never in the situation where having the OS not installed on drive C created some problem...

So I had the doubt, wondering whether this 'tech' could be right after all... he was very persuasive, telling me he'd "correct his company's unfortunate fault" for free... duh it's more indispensible that a work pc be stable than one of my own rigs (heaven knows what hells I'd go through if something goes wrong)...
Meh now I wonder what might be at the back of this guy's mind...

[Darknova]

I had XP installed as D: for a long time, never had issues except on older installers that defaulted to C:\ without checking your drives before hand. All newer installers (that I've seen) will automatically default to the OS HDD, not C:\

[Black Panther]

Originally Posted by EviLZeD

Once i installed xp on d: drive only problem i had was programs default installation directory was in c: so i had to keep changing the installation directory (my second hard drive without the os was showing up as C: )

Originally Posted by Fastmix

Most software default to c: so yes any other letter could cause problems.

Uh, yup I knew about the default issues, just didn't think that probably it's assumed that people follow default.

Now I realise that this guy probably assumed I'd "not be knowing" about the fact that having the OS installed on G I'd have to change the defaults of installation...
Well I certainly don't blame him in that case...

So I guess he's right after all. Having the OS on any other drive than C will create problems in general... and he didn't want to risk that.

Well, it's certainly comforting knowing that people aren't out there trying to be opportunistic at the expense of others.
Thanks for all the advice given. And more thanks because hadn't I cleared my doubts over here I'd have informed my dad about this and he'd have sided with him and gone through all the trouble and hassle of taking the pc to their place for a reinstall

[Darknova]

If he was going to charge money for it, I'd advise you not to go to him, but as he's prepared to do it free, and it's a "work PC". I say let them fix their mistake

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

I totally agree with spearman. It will do no problems of the sort. If that were teh case, no one could dual/tri/quad boot.

Say you had Xp and Vista dual booted. If XP was C drive and Vista was D (accroding to XP), when you boot into Vista, that D drive then becomes C and XP becomes D. It did that for me the last time i dual booted the two OS's. So either way, each OS defaulted as the C: drive.

[Black Panther]

Thanks again. All this makes me realise I'm still far away with my knowledge. I originally realised that renaming the pendrive to M or any other unoccupied letter would make it work, and it did work when I tried it out even though I was afraid I was risking. I was just afraid that I'd throw the C: network drive out of view and muck up... Which means I've got to read less on overclocking and gaming and more on networking lol...

[Silverel]

I have seen a few rather rare programs that default to C: and don't give an option to change the drive letter... The chance of running into one is stupidly insignificant. I'd take my chances with leaving it on G:

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Originally Posted by Silverel

I have seen a few rather rare programs that default to C: and don't give an option to change the drive letter... The chance of running into one is stupidly insignificant. I'd take my chances with leaving it on G:

FEAR XP does it to me occasionally. It all depends on its mood i guess whenever i have to install it.

[Lillebror]

older programs can have a problem installing - but everything thats "Certified for Xp" and "Certified for vista" aint gonna have a problem with it Back in the old days, you always asumed you had installed windows on c:\, but alot of people is using another drive letter for the os today

[niko084]

I have seen a few auto installer scripts target C: like a bunch of idiots who can't program..

But for the grand majority of things, no you will no have any issues.

[francis511]

Originally Posted by niko084

I have seen a few auto installer scripts target C: like a bunch of idiots who can't program..

But for the grand majority of things, no you will no have any issues.

As long as you change the default installation directory when you install something.

[niko084]

Originally Posted by francis511

As long as you change the default installation directory when you install something.

*auto install script*, as in a self installing exe or msi etc that doesn't allow you to change the directory..

Most programs will allow you to set the directory or better yet just read the systems drive by device or system drive letter.

[lemonadesoda]

Get it fixed to C: panther. That is very important. In theory it shouldnt matter, but in practice it does. Why? Because lots of software, esp. sh1tty financial software like Quickbooks, Lexware, Booking stuff, demands not only C: but also demands being installed directly on c:/. It wont even be happy with c:/Program Files/

This becomes even more of a problem with INTERNATIONAL SOFTWARE where "Program Files" might be something else in a different language.

MOREOVER, all those virtual drivers sound dodgy. I bet to speed up the install the "engineer" used a keystick boot drive with Windows Install on it. Only, the bios set the keystick to c: so he only had other drives for the HDD. That's a common problem with keystick boots... it graps the c:

I had exactly the same issue. I had an automated Win install and it put it on D:. I though, oh bugger, but never mind. However it caused so many probs I had to reinstall. The guy onthe phone was right... it might work now... but WHEN it doesnt work it will be a PITA and at the wrong time when things are urgent.

Fix it now

[Silverel]

Originally Posted by niko084

I have seen a few auto installer scripts target C: like a bunch of idiots who can't program..

But for the grand majority of things, no you will no have any issues.

Yeah, I regularly have to check scripts for dumb shet like that. Some of our guys think there ain't a difference between xp and 2k. One guy was writing a script to save user profiles to a network drive so we could re-image the local. Didn't work on any of em for the first day cause he wrote it in XP looking for /Documents and Settings/Username instead of 2k being WINNT/Profiles/Username...

He was sent home from that trip.

[niko084]

Originally Posted by Silverel

Yeah, I regularly have to check scripts for dumb shet like that. Some of our guys think there ain't a difference between xp and 2k. One guy was writing a script to save user profiles to a network drive so we could re-image the local. Didn't work on any of em for the first day cause he wrote it in XP looking for /Documents and Settings/Username instead of 2k being WINNT/Profiles/Username...

He was sent home from that trip.

Too many people jump into IT thinking they know... They might have an idea, but they don't know and the experience isn't there to back it.

[Silverel]

Originally Posted by niko084

Too many people jump into IT thinking they know... They might have an idea, but they don't know and the experience isn't there to back it.

Yessir, and that is exactly the reason why we put them on the help desk.

[sneekypeet]

BP to me at this point its about the warranty/ you have reported an issue which I assume was tracked to your business or you , yourself via information given to the PC guy you were talking to.

My thought is this. Let them fix it, I would hate for you to run it for a bit and down the road have something fail. Seems to me they could use this against you for warranty coverage, if any applies. If the machine is as-is, no warranty, then just let it run as its doing, but I would hate to see them use it for leverage later.

Just my 2 pennies.

[c_C]

Black Panther, where is your boot.ini file located at? You can change drive letters and so forth, but if you screw up an install, it can actually end up on a drive or partition other than "C". I have practiced doing this (screwing up installs).

[c_C]

P.S. the OS has to boot from the first partition of the first drive, or just the first drive if these is only one partition. Otherwise Bill Gates will track you down and beat the shit out of you for technical reasons outside of the scope of this discussion. (that sounded impressive).