I set up a CVS repository on our office server, but in order to protect against potential data loss in the eventuality of an operating system crash, I placed the repositories on a separte drive on the server. Using wincvs I am able to connect to the repository from my workstation. However, when I attempt to use the cvs client inside of phped I get the following error.

Bad CVSROOT: `:pserver:username:password@server:F:/cvsrepo/reponame'

I think the cvs client is having a hard time with the F: portion of the repository path, but I am not sure how else to identify the appropriate path in the cvs root. I tried using the name of the drive instead of the drive letter (e.g. /drivename/cvsrepo/reponame) but I just recieved an error stating that there was no such repository available.

Is there some other way to identify the appropriate path in the cvs root in a way that the phped cvs client will accept?

You may want to try out a different CVS for Windows server (daemon).
I'd recommend you use one shipped with Cygwin if you want to work under Windows.

I noticed that CVSNT wasn't having the same problems, and that you can tell the cvs client in phped where to look for the cvs.exe file.
Now I am able to use cvs inside of phped with the full csv repository path in the cvsroot.