2008R2 has the primary partition marked as D drive

[edutech4schools]

Its been one of those days I should have just stayed at home.

 

I have just installed my first 2008R2 server. During the install I created a 60gb partition and choose to install 2008R2 onto it.

 

After logging in and going to disk management it shows the primary parttion as the D drive and the rest of my drive as C.

 

Why has this happened? how can I fix this?

[edutech4schools]

I just re ran the install and the same problem. For some reason 2008R2 wants to create the drive its installing to as the D drive.

 

Server Dell T610

[jamesfed]

Could you post a screen shot of disk management?

[sted]

boot from install media

delete partitions

reboot

boot from install media

create c drive partition leave rest of disk blank

[ChrisMiles]

I assume this is because during the setup you are crating the 2 partitions in order and leaving the 2nd one selected. When configuring partitions in Windows 2008 R2 setup, windows will install to whichever partition is selected when you click next, not the first one on the disk.

[edutech4schools]

I assume this is because during the setup you are crating the 2 partitions in order and leaving the 2nd one selected

 

I was careful not to have the other drive selected. In fact I only created and formatted the drive I wanted to install the OS on to. I was going to create the other drives from windows.

 

Jamesfed & Sted I am not at the school until Thursday. I'll post back then.

[FN-GM]

I always partition and format the second drive after i have done the OS Install to prevent this kind of thing.

[sted]

just a thought it hasnt got a card reader or something has it because they can do odd things to drive lettering

[edutech4schools]

Does have an internal memory card. The Dell server has a pre OS install and I think it uses this memory to store all the drivers for the chosen OS. Did read some people use this memory for vmware boot.

 

I found a post about internal memory cards causing issues with 2003 driver letter assignments but found nothing for 2008R2. I have another Google.

[edutech4schools]

(got my drives and partitions mixed up a bit in other post)

 

Just so I am not confusing everyone the server has 5 drives in RAID 5. 1 drive is hot swap and the rest are setup as a single unit. Windows sees this as a single drive during the install and I then create a 60gb partition, format it, highlight it and hit install OS. The rest of the drive (600gb) I have not touched.

 

After the install when I look at disk man it shows my 60gb partition as the D drive. For some reason the other chunk of drive (600gb) has also been formatted and set as C.

 

At all stages the internal memory card is displayed as a drive but I have just been ignoring it, assuming other users must have installed 2008R2 onto this kit (DELL T610).

[edutech4schools]

http://asimages.homeip.net/diskman/diskman.jpg

 

EDIT: both C & D drives have primary partition.

Edited May 22, 2011 by edutech4schools

[edutech4schools]

OK ignore the above post the internal memory card is not visible in windows and the EFI system is created during the install.

[DEvans]

Unfortunately there is no way in changing the primary partition once its built and any "third party" crazy idea on how to do it will most likely result in problems later down the line.

 

I need to agree with ChrisMiles here and it sounds like you left the second partition highlighted, when you concentrate too hard you can miss out the obvious.

 

Clear all the drives, format the lot so you have a single partition, create a new partition of whatever gig (think MS recommend 80GB (81920), unsure if thats changed due to SP1)

 

It will create your 100MB Drive for BitLocker, then ensure you choose and highlight that partition for the installation.

 

Taking a page out of the book of user FN-GM. Do the final partitioning in the Disk Manager when you have the operating system installed. Avoids this whole thing and simplifies the build process since all you need to do is create a single partition of a certain size.

 

There is nothing I have found on google about a bug in 2008R2 that would cause this. Unless you had a crazy RAID setup or something.

 

Of all the servers i've built 2008R2 has never been a problem for me and I've built all sorts of different kinds with all sorts of RAID controllers and HDD Sizes. 2008R2 should be a piece of cake.

 

The key word being "should", as being Microsoft, not everyone will have the same experience.

[edutech4schools]

Ran through the install and all working fine. I also have the mem card displaying in Disk Man which didn't happen last time.