Windows – How Does Windows Number its Disks? Mine keep switching

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How does Windows number its disks? By numbering, I mean the physical disks, which Disk Management calls Disk 0, Disk 1, Disk 2, etc.

My C and D partition used to be on Disk 0 and my E partition was on Disk 1. Now, however, my C and D paritions are Disk 1 and E is on Disk 0.

I have a backup product which backs up based on the disk numbering, so when this changes, it messes up which disk should be backed up.

Best Answer

I am pretty sure it numbers them based on their position on the ide / sata controllers. The drives should remain the same all the time unless you are switching around which ports they are plugged into.

I guess if you aren't doing that and still experiencing the problem you might look in the BIOS to see if you can fix where/what the drives are (instead of AUTO detect).

from this site

" if you have SATA and eSATA connectors with only a SATA disk connected, it will be disk 0, but if you then connect an eSATA disk, it will become disk 0, even if you are still booting to the SATA disk. A disk connected to the IDE master will always be disk 0, and the rest will re-rank."

There is no software control over this, it is all based on what the operating system reads from the BIOS.

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