What is the difference between Local Disk and New Volume?

Question

We have a product ,while doing some operation we found this error "Logical disk 'C:' was not found" . When i checked my "C" folder i saw its named as 'New Volume (C:)' , but when i changed to 'Local Disk (C:)' , the error which i was getting gone. Can any body tell me the reason behind it.

These all are my doubts First one is, if 'C' folder name is 'New Volume (C:) ' what does 'New Volume' stands is it simply a folder name? then what does (C:) stands is it the one understood by OS?

Second is if 'C' folder name is 'Local Disk (C:) ' what does 'Local Disk' stands is it simply a folder name? then what does (C:) stands

Solution

I'd be willing to bet that it's a sheer coincidence or, in changing the name, you fixed some other underlying error. Volume Names don't really have any meaning beyond a friendly reference, and there's no difference between a volume called "New Volume", "Local Disk" or "Dans Hard Drive".

The drive letter on the other hand - this is how Windows references different volumes. So, say you have two hard drives (Or two partitions, they're the same for this explanation), then you may have two drives called

C: and D:

You'll rarely see and A: and B: due to legacy requirements - these always used to be the floppy disks.

You'll also notice that every other drive, such as CD-ROMS, DVD-ROMS, USB flash drives and occasionally MP3 players etc will also have a letter.

Each volume must have a unique letter in order to be accessed by Windows. You can customise these, and even remove them*, but that's out of scope.

*Removing the letter will make the volume inaccessible, but you can still see the volume in Disk Management, and assign a letter to it etc.

Comments

[slhck]

Steve, you've done it before, and moderators have already told you not to do it again. Please don't cross post on multiple sites, like you did with this question here. This causes so much overhead in closing / merging these questions.

[Steve]

so you meant Local Disk (C:) means Local Disk is the name which we gave "C" drive name we gave at OS installation time ?

[Steve]

so you meant Local Disk (C:) means Local Disk is the name which we gave "C" drive name we gave at OS installation time ?

[Dan]

Yep - "C" would've been automatically assigned.

[Steve]

so 'C' is Drive name given By OS and New Volume or local disk what ever will be the name given by us, but one more thing i noticed that when i kept the name of C drive blank it automatically changing in to Local Disk (C:) whats the reason behind it?

[Steve]

so 'C' is Drive name given By OS and New Volume or local disk what ever will be the name given by us, but one more thing i noticed that when i kept the name of C drive blank it automatically changing in to Local Disk (C:) whats the reason behind it?

[NobbZ]

Local Disk and New Volume should be simple "given names" of that drive, that you say an empty drive name is displayed as "Local Drive" irritates me. Cant speak for english Windows, since I am using a german one, and there an empty name is displayed as "New Volume" (yes in english!). "c:" (the cologne!!!) is the way windows references any logical drive, or even any other letter + the colone. You can change the letters for a drive in systemsettings -> drive manager (or something like that), but you should not do that for the system drive. Also my times with windows are long ago...

[NobbZ]

I switched to linux about the time of vista release, only having occasionaly contacts to winXP when fixing my wifes or laptop :) All the explanations I gave are from fading memories :D

[Steve]

when i kept the name of C drive blank i mean i removed name "New Volume" it automatically changing in to Local Disk (C:) whats the reason behind it?

[sgmoore]

Each Disk can have a volume label which acts like a description. If it is set, then Explorer will display it, otherwise it will display a generated name based on the device disk, eg Local Disk, DVD Drive, Removable Disk, etc.