Simviation Forums

Ok when I try to install or uninstall a program I will get a erro that states something of the like of "Invalid drive F" or "Cant locate drive F"  (sorry dont know exact wording have nothing I want to install or uninstall currently)

I don't have a drive F, the only time I had a drive listed as F was when i had a external drive labled "G" and while it was connected had a thumb drive inserted into a USB port, I was transfering some files so the thumb drive became "F".

Now the issue is whenever I try to install or uninstall any program I must plug the thumbdrive in to prevent the "Cant find F error". This is a major issue becasue I dont always have the drive with me

Is there anyway that I can keep this from happening? a hidden setting or something or will I now have to always have a thumb drive handy to pop into the USB port in order to prevent this error?

Windows is looking for files on F: drive by default for some reason, maybe the last thing you properly installed was a driver on the F: drive so now that's where windows is looking for any missing files.

Normally the system looks for D: (the CDROM disk whatever letter that is) because that's where windows loaded it's drivers and possibly where you put a disk into to install a driver.

Instead of installing automatically, try searching for the software to install (say a new version of a video card driver) manually using the install wizard's file browser if you know how. Once the software is found on another drive, it may just default to that one next.

If you see an option to set the path to the software installation (driver ? ), always set the path using the file requestor manually, rather than just letting windows automatically find the software. There seem to be certain exceptions to this where it's better to let windows auto find it, but this is usually when you have no idea where the driver is on your drives.

That's all I can think of right now...

[quote]Ok when I try to install or uninstall a program I will get a erro that states something of the like of "Invalid drive F" or "Cant locate drive F"

Thanks for the replies! I will check into both to see what works.

The only thing I installed on to the Thumbdrive which is "F" when plugged in was OpenOffice Portable, and that wasnt really a install but unziping the package to the drive.

I will let you know what I can find out after trying your tips, thanks again!

One more quick thought... If you have an HP machine, they recently published an update that corrects an issue with drive mappings. Mostly for network assignments, but for hard cards as well.
Mick