Changing Drive Letters

adams · #1 27th Jul 03, 12:16 AM

i just got done with a low level format on all 3 drives, then setup xp pro sp1 on the 20gb. after it got done i went to my computer and noticed that it said the 20gb hd(where xp is installed at) and it had the drive letter of H: . and my zip drive has the drive letter of C: . (all of the other drives are screwed up too, but that doesn't matter, expcept for the floppy drive its still a: ).

I'm not sure why it did this, but is there any way i can get c: to be my 20gb. i would like to do it without using any partition manager and without having to format/install xp again, but if that is how i have to do it without installing any software i will.

thanks.

edit: i don't know if this makes a difference or not, but my 40gb and my 80gb hasn't been formatted yet.

Vinnie · #2 27th Jul 03, 01:00 AM

You should be able to go to computer management, click on Disk Management, then right click on the drive you want to change. There's an option to Change Drive Letter and Paths....

adams · #3 27th Jul 03, 01:15 AM

i get the following message:

Quote:

Windows cannot modify the drive letter of your system volume or boot volume.

unicorn · #4 27th Jul 03, 01:29 AM

There are workaround for changing the driveletter of the systemdrive, I remember reading about this at the ms knowledgebase. I also remember they don't recommend to do it as they can't guarantee that everything will work. Considering there allready are errors in the registry immediately after a fresh install I believe them.
I tried this once but have to admit I didn't manage to get the system alltogether stable. It's easier to reinstall.

As you can boot and use the system now it's a good opportunity to make it all right. Check the driveletters/partitions now, change them into the order you want them to. Copy the i386 dir to another drive than the one you want to have as C: and then run winnt32.exe from within WinXP. Chooose the advanced option where you can tell the setup you want to decide where the system shall live. Then you will get the option to choose this during the setup later.

10 cents from

adams · #5 27th Jul 03, 03:03 AM

somebody mentioned on another board about if i had changed any jumpers on any of my drives before the installation. i had forgot, but i did so i guess i'll go and check all those jumpers and be back in a few hours again and hopefully everything will be right again.

Kawadevil · #6 27th Jul 03, 09:26 AM

I have seen this before Adams.
If you change the jumers it won't work, the drive still keeps his drive letter.
During setup of XP youmight have seen the screen to format your drive's.
Here I alway do it manualy because I have seen it a couple of times that this util mistakenly gave a wrong letter to the bootdrive.
After I did notice it, I deleted that partition and made a new one, then all was fine.
Changing the bootdrive letter on a full working system is dangerous. I would not recomend it either.

adams · #7 27th Jul 03, 02:50 PM

after i got inside the case and realized what jumpers i had changed, there wasn't any reason the main hd should have changed cause it wasn't on the same cable anyways.

edit: just did the reformat and it took care of it, so thread is closed now.