Installations default to H: drive which I can't connect to!!!

Lightattheend

I have an external hard drive (H:\ ) which I can no longer get my computer to connect to (after my son used it on his laptop) however now when I try and install anything (e.g. software for mobile dongle) it automatically tries to install everything onto the H: drive which then fails (obviously). Does anyone have any idea how I can change the default drive so it goes back to installing on the C: drive. Also does anyone know how I could sort the hard drive out - laptop just doesn't seem to connect and the light just flashes on the front of the hard drive.

Thanks in advance,

Late



Details: Running Windows Vista on a Toshiba Equium laptop

fwor

Have you tried any other USB device (e.g. a pendrive) in the socket on the laptop that you're connecting the external drive to? It's possible that the laptop's USB hub device has stopped working correctly.

johnmc

Give this a try (backup your registry first).

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/242/xp-change-default-installation-directory/

Lightattheend

fwor wrote: »

Have you tried any other USB device (e.g. a pendrive) in the socket on the laptop that you're connecting the external drive to? It's possible that the laptop's USB hub device has stopped working correctly.

Thanks for this but other USB devices work ok, its only when trying to install software it defaults to the H: drive. It even does it when my mobile phone software tries to update itself automatically on-line!

Lightattheend

johnmc wrote: »

Give this a try (backup your registry first).

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/242/xp-change-default-installation-directory/

Thanks for this but I'd already found this path and the default is set as the C: drive so nothing to really do there unless I change it to something else and then back again

closed

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/regscanner.html

search for h:

Lightattheend

closed wrote: »

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/regscanner.html

search for h:

Thanks, just tried this and it lists 14 H: files but I'm not sure what that means as its not actually connected physically to the H: drive.

closed

it means there are 14 pointers to h drive in your registry, one of them is likely to be the culprit, post the report if you aren't sure which.

Lightattheend

Here's the relevant part of the report (I hope), sorry it looks a bit of a mess but I've tried to separate the items.

=============

closed

When you install the dongle and then change it to c:, does that not fix the problem?

Lightattheend

closed wrote: »

When you install the dongle and then change it to c:, does that not fix the problem?

I don't get the option to change it to c: it just loads the installer and then stops with the error message it can't find h:.