Changing system drive letter???

[Bachinat0r]

I just recently formatted my hard drive due to some problems...i am currently running windows xp pro and my boot volume consists of 2 WD drives running in a raid 0. the problem is that when i installed windows xp pro, my system drive is labeled e:? when i go into the computer management to change this, it says that i can't change the system/boot drive letter??? i swear that i did before...what can i do to correct this??? i would really like my system drive letter to be c:.

 

[FROGGYJ]

Follow this link and you'll be good to go.

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...port/kb/articles/Q223/1/88.ASP&NoWebContent=1

A+,N+,CST,CNCT,MCP

 

[Bachinat0r]

I read that particular article...will this also work for XP Pro? i was just confused b/c i didn't understand how changing that one key would change all references to an old drive letter to a new one...thanks for the reply.

 

[FROGGYJ]

Well can't say I have tested it and I'm not near my XP box, but I would be confident in going ahead with it personally.


A+,N+,CST,CNCT,MCP

 

[times44]

the problem you have is not with the letter but with the partition number. I had the same issue. When you format your hard drive, partition 1 gets the letter "c", partition 2 gets the letter d, and so forth. by default operation system files go to partition 1. change letters all you want but these files must be on the first sector of your hard drive - that's the way embedded software instructs hard drive on boot.
go to help and support and read about diskpart command: which ever partition has offset 0 becomes partition 1, and it must have operating system files necessary to boot.

 

[Bachinat0r]

i don't see how it could be a problem with my partition number??? the 2 drives are the only hard disks i have hookup up and they are are IDE 3 and IDE 4 (which are my 2 raid channels). the only other devices i have hooked up are on IDE 1 and they are my cdrw as master and a zip on slave.

 

[times44]

If you have only one partition per HD, than you are right. If you have more than one partition per HD, then I'm right

 

[Bachinat0r]

i have only one partition on the drive...any other ideas?

 

[wolluf]

nspatch,

afaik that M$ KB article does apply to XP too - but it only changes the system drive letter - not all references (so, for example, your registry will have a number of e: drive references. These will not be changed - you have to do that yourself, manually (or by whatever best method you can devise). Which is one reason its not recommended - potential for problems. I've never done this with XP (have with NT, which allows you to do it with disk Administrator, but got fed up with various overlooked bits and pieces, so ended up reinstalling - but only a test machine, so no big deal).

Two suggestions. 1. Live with it - I've got XP on F: - no problem.
2. Backup, remove all partitions (use fdisk or something like delpart, so they are gone before you start the XP install - it should then create partition as C: drive) and start again

 

[FROGGYJ]

I have done it in windows xp where my system drive was D:\ I lived with it, then got bored one day and thought I would toy with it....well in the end to be honest its not worth the effort cause all kinds of stuff doesn't work after your done, but that will take a paragraph to get into. If you hate it then just reinstall as per wolluf


A+,N+,CST,CNCT,MCP

 

[Bachinat0r]

even something such as the drive mapper included in partition magic won't fix everything???

 

[wolluf]

don't think so - though I've never tried that on system drive.

 

[Bachinat0r]

i am going to try the registry tweak and then the drive mapper...the worst that could happen is that i would have to format 160 gigs and start over...thanks for all the input. i will let you know how it works out.

 

[FROGGYJ]

Yes please reply back to let us know what happend....should be interesting.


A+,N+,CST,CNCT,MCP