[Coladam] PC hard disk problems

[Joe Blenkle]

Help! Maybe someone out there who is more knowledgable about such things can help me.

My computer runs Windows ME. I recently bought an external hard drive that hooks to the computer via USB port. Prior to installation my drive configuration looked like this:

DRIVE/TYPE
A-B - Floppies
C-H - Hard Disks (2 IDE hard disks with 3 partitions each)
I-J - 2 CD ROM drives
K - Memory card slot in my printer

When I initially hook up the external hard drive it registers properly as Drive "L"

If I shut down my computer, when I turn in on again, the new drive comes back and lists as both drive "E" and drive "L" on my system, displacing all the drives that were originally E-K by one drive.

Does anyone know why this would happen or how to fix it? The drive is supposed to run OK under Windows ME.  I hooked the drive up to my laptop also, but it behaves properly there. The laptop runs Windows XP.

Joe Blenkle
jblenkle at sacnews.net