Challenge: Renaming Boot Drive Letter in Dual-Boot System 1

[CCCarson]

OK, I know it's not the done thing. But I DO have the time to change lots of file paths, and I'd really like to solve this.

I have 2 IDE Drives, 0 and 1.

I can boot up to either IDE 0 or 1 and do a dual boot from either; plus I can press "delete," go into the BIOS, and trade IDE 0 for 1.

-- IDE 0 has 3 partitions, all Pri Bootable, with Windows ME in the first.
-- IDE 1 has 2 partitions, with XP Pro SP1 in the first, which is Pri Bootable. PLUS IDE 1 has an ext. part. (LBA), not bootable (I don't know where that one came from) and, exactly the same size, my only NTFS drive, listed as log. bootable.

In Millennium on IDE 0, ME is Drive C; the other drives are D and E. Looking at things from ME's perspective, the other disk contains F (XP) and G. Perfect; just the way I want it.

But from XP's point of view, XP occupies the coveted C: position, which throws everything else awry. If only I could change that XP (C file letter to (F! Then I could have identical drive letters in both systems. (I go back and forth a lot; hence my use of so much FAT32 instead of NTFS. It would be VERY handy to have identical letters, even though I've fudged things on my shortcut names.)

I have just survived an ultra-scary boot near-disaster, so I'm being cautious...sort of. I also have downloaded a copy of what seems like a beautiful program called BOOT-US. But so far I haven't found out how to change that boot letter.

I'm trying not to spend money or to re-install from scratch. Any suggestions??? Thank you.

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Celeron4 1.7/512 RAM, Primary Master IDE HDD 30 (Parts E,F,G); Slave 80 (Parts C(C+D), both 7200 Maxtors; Secondary Master CD-RW, Slave CD-ROM. 5 Windows partitions; dual-boot XPPro+ME; ADSL.

 

[CCCarson]

Soapover, I did get that far in my understanding. ME demands C:, but XP is flexible on the issue. So, as you say, ME controls the system in that regard. That's usually the way, I suppose: the weakest link determines the strength of the chain; or, put a different way, the person who loves the less controls the relationship. ('Tis true!)

-- I like my ME, and have been glad to keep it as a backup. I'm attempting to get the nerve to make a jump to Linux Gentoo, which I intend to learn from scratch, downloading for free and burning onto CDs; the whole bit. I've promised myself I'll do that this year. I notice it's October.

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Celeron4 1.7/512 RAM, Primary Master IDE HDD 30 (3 Parts); Slave 80 (2 Parts), both 7200 Maxtors; Secondary Master CD-RW (W, Slave CD-ROM (Q. 5 Windows partitions; dual-boot XPPro+ME; ADSL.

 

[soaplover]

You might also take a look on making a WinPE cd-disk .

=== from an earlier post===
Give this a go !
I have spendt the last hours making me a bootable
WinPE CD .
I now have a BootCd witch support Win32 applications
and dos enviroment .
I also packed in McAfee updated antivirus on it.
as well as AVG 7.0 dos scanner/cleaner .
And Adaware 6 with latest ref file .

Network support makes you map your booted machine
to another machines share for copying files .

I also managed to pack Nero v.6 on the CD .
so files from non starting pc can be burned to CD if
equipped with burner.

WinPE enviroment and all programs run from CD and Ramdisk
so there is no writing to HD ( just like knoppix work ) .

Comment on (knoppix/linux boot cd) :
Only downside with linux(knoppix) bootcd used for recovery on a NT machine is that linux compilations can only read NTFS not write ,(i guess that that can make it hard to repair
a file witch has virus if it's an NTFS partition)



PeBuilder:

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

Forum:

http://www.911cd.net/forums/index.php?sh...

=========================
What is PE Builder?

Bart's PE Builder helps you build a bootable Window CD-Rom or DVD from Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 very suitable for PC maintenance tasks.

It will give you a complete Win32 environment with network support, a graphical user interface (800x600) and FAT/NTFS/CDFS filesystem support. Very handy for burn-in testing systems with no OS, rescuing files to a network share, virus scan and so on.
This will replace any Dos bootdisk (even masterpieces like modboot and Bart's Network Bootdisk) in no time!




//Regards Soaplover

 

[CCCarson]

Freestone, msybe I can clear up your confusion (or else make things even more complicated). In the beginning, I had ME as C: on a 5-gig HD. If I recall, D: was a CD-ROM. Then I added a 30-gig HD and partitioned it into E: and F:, and I put XP onto F:. Later the 5-gig HD developed heart problems, so I retired it and replaced it with an 80-gig HD, in 2 partitions. At the same time I bought a CD-RW. C: and E: became, respectively, ME and XP on the 30-gig. The bigger HD was for storage and it also backed up C: with D: in FAT32, and E: with F: in NTFS.
How are we doing so far? I think the CD-ROMS became G: and H: then, although later I pushed them way down the alphabet as Q: and W:.

Now the fun begins. Take a deep breath. We have Drive 0 with C: (ME) and E: (XP), right? And Drive 1 with D: and F:.

But that new 80-gig drive seemed to have problems. (This is the issue I've lately decided may well be a connection or cable problem, rather than the HD itself.) As I tried to troubleshoot the intermittent "clicks" that accompanied loss of recognition of its 2 partitions (D and (F, I took it back to the shop where my helpful tech guy found nothing wrong at all, began to doubt it was a HD problem, and on a whim tried loading a different XP onto that disk, which I'd cleaned off to have it returned to Maxtor.

As far as I know, you can't have 2 XPs on one system--yes, but there is a way. He used the BIOS. The rest of the system was running on a Dual-Boot, but ME (C and XP (E, you remember, were both on IDE Drive 0. Keeping both ME and XP, he loaded this other XP onto IDE Drive 1 (with the idea of exercising the suspect drive, during install and later use, to find out once and for all if it were faulty).

He set up this second XP (I'll call it XP-2 and the original XP-1) as C(C. That looked strange, and I didn't realize for awhile that the first "C" is the volume label, preceding the partition volume (C ON THAT IDE DISK. Later I changed it to [label] XP [drive letter] (C.

-- I've since learned that it could have been assigned any available letter in the alphabet. XP doesn't care; ME does. ME sort of DEMANDS to take C:, as I understand.

Later I did a few more things. I accidentally murdered my original XP-1 on its (E by unallocating the partition. By that time I'd given XP-2 enough of a workout that it didn't really matter; it simply replaced the original. Then I fixed the damage I'd done, subdividing the repaired partition into two, one which is a tiny 3.5 GB (very handy).

Okay? So ME remains on IDE Disk 0 as (C, but when I use the BIOS to boot up in IDE Disk 1, XP calls ITSELF (C. And that messes up my nice arrangement (in ME) of 0: (C)(D)(E) and 1: (F)(G). That's what started this thread.

BUT, you don't get off QUITE so easily, guys! Tell me this:

(1) On that IDE Drive 1, there is a dual-boot menu (to my surprise) that reads: "Microsoft Windows XP Professional" over just "Microsoft Windows." I've tried the second choice, and it lists off a basic directory including WINDOWS and leaves me with a DOS prompt. Was my computer set up on a Windows 98 foundation, or is this how WINDOWS loads? Should I copy that WINDOWS info to a CD as a spare backup?

(2) On that IDE Drive 1, I have 2 partitions, (C-which I wanted to be (F for XP, plus my only NTFS partition, which is (G. (G is a "logical" drive. It is 49.61 GB; and, listed as a third entity (this only shows on the program called BOOT-US) is ANOTHER 49.61 GB partition (obviously?? the same one) shown as "extended" and not bootable. [The 3 partitions on my other IDE Drive are all primary bootables.]

-- What is this mysterious "partion behind a partition" which has no name? Does it have anything to do with that "WINDOWS" pseudo-dual boot???? I'm VERY confused about that.

(3) And, finally, if I use just the single XP now, can I streamline my Dual-Boot so I don't have to stop off at the BIOS to trade IDE 0 and IDE 1 back and forth?

Thanks so much. I'm glad you guys know everything there is to know in the universe, because I sure don't.

H

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Celeron4 1.7/512 RAM, Primary Master IDE HDD 30 (3 Parts); Slave 80 (2 Parts), both 7200 Maxtors; Secondary Master CD-RW (W, Slave CD-ROM (Q. 5 Windows partitions; dual-boot XPPro+ME; ADSL.

 

[CCCarson]

Soaplover, I've downloaded Bart's PE Builder. It looks like fun. Thanks lots!

-- There was a spanking new one, October 13th. I guess he's always working on it.

-- Had lots of trouble getting it. Most of the download sites seemed to be blocked. Maybe that was my own anti-practically-everything stuff blocking them. Or I wonder if MS doesn't like Bart?? I tried both IE6 and Firebird; got it via Firebird.

I just love nifty-keeners stuff like this! It sounds like a really good CD to have around like nitroglycerin in case of heart attack! I'll put it together this weekend.
(-:

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Celeron4 1.7/512 RAM, Primary Master IDE HDD 30 (3 Parts); Slave 80 (2 Parts), both 7200 Maxtors; Secondary Master CD-RW (W, Slave CD-ROM (Q. 5 Windows partitions; dual-boot XPPro+ME; ADSL.

 

[Freestone]

CissyG - Thanks for clarifying. This was the way I had understood it to be - you boot XP from IDE1 by making it the first boot device in BIOS. Hence, my earlier claim that you can't change its drive letter. This is based on my knowledge of drive assignments rooted in the good old DOS days. wolluf's post about XP getting F: makes sense, but doesn't jibe with what you are seeing. Then that Microsoft article I posted a link for is just totally baffling...it's Friday, my head hurts

Now a bit on your "partition behind a partition". Your IDE1 drive is divided into two types of partitions: primary and extended. Extended partitions can be subdivided into logical drives, whereas primary partitions cannot. In your case, the extended partition was dedicated to one logical drive (G, which was formatted with NTFS. So you have a logical drive formatted as NTFS contained by an extended partition.

Now an answer you won’t like. If you were to convert your second drive to one extended partition and then divide that into two logical drives, then install XP into the first logical drive, then viola, you have your desired drive set up. Unfortunately, at the cost of all your data being lost. There are tools that will enable you to delete your IDE1 XP primary partition, join that free space to the existing extended partition, then create a logical drive from the new free extended space, but that’s not for the faint of heart.

I don’t know what the second entry on your dual-boot is, but I’m sure it was created when XP was installed on IDE1 by your tech.

 

[wolluf]

I know this post has got confusing enough - but can't resist adding a little more:-

1. CissyG - you could multiboot as many 'XP' installations as you want on the same machine (well 40+, with 2 drives, space permitting).

2. If you judiciously use disconnection of hard drives and hiding of partitions while installing, you can basically get all NT based operating systems to install to what drive you like. Boot-us has partition hiding and what it calls true hiding (ie, NT based systems can't see it - they can see normally hidden ones, but won't write to them). Also you can install 9x/ME systems anywhere on the disk that they'll boot from and they'll all have their system drive as C:. Once you have operating system on correct drive, you can reassign all the other drive letters as you want (

http://www.v72735.f2s.com/LetAssig/index.html

will do this for 9x/ME, disk management for 2k/XP - or of course if you've got partition magic).

3. I never use extended partitions - 8 primary on 2 disks has so far been enough for me. I've 'lost' a few extended ones (and have seen a number of posts where others have too) - and always force operating systems to have their boot sectors in their own partition, so they are all independent.

 

[CCCarson]

Thanks, Wolluf. I'm going to do some homework and follow up what you said. Actually, it does make a difference to have absolutely no "thought process" required as various drives are accessed from the different locations. That kind of activity should be totally fluid, so it just happens, and a person can concentrate on whatever is being done. Thanks.

















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Celeron4 1.7/512 RAM, Primary Master IDE HDD 30 (3 Parts); Slave 80 (2 Parts), both 7200 Maxtors; Secondary Master CD-RW (W, Slave CD-ROM (Q. 5 Windows partitions; dual-boot XPPro+ME; ADSL.