Hi all,

I have been asked to replace an ailing hard drive on a Dell Inspiron
8200 laptop. The drive letters on the Windows XP system were as follows
before the replacement:

C: old hard drive
D: CD-ROM drive
E: Iomaga ATAPI Zip Drive 250

I partitioned the new drive into two 30 GB Partitions. When I booted
XP, they showed up as follows

C: Iomega Zip Drive
D; CD Rom Drive
E: new hard drive (primary boot partition, the drive on which Windows is
installed
F: second hard drive partition.

I would like to have the drive letter arrangements as follows:

C: primary boot partition (Windows boot drive)
D: extended hard drive partition
E: Iomega ZIP drive
F: CD Rom Drive

Assuming that I can't use Partition Magic, what is the best way to get
the job done? I know that drive letters changing unexpectedly when you
do a fresh install of XP is a known problem
(http://support.microsoft.com/default...&Product=winxp
), but what is the best way to fix this short of repartitioning and
reformatting again? The thing that complicates this is that the Windows
boot drive is already assigned to E:.

Please help.

Thanks in advance.

Mike

Windows XP Drive Manager, allows you to change to assigned drive letters.

Bill Crocker



"Mike" <please-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi all,
>
> I have been asked to replace an ailing hard drive on a Dell Inspiron
> 8200 laptop. The drive letters on the Windows XP system were as follows
> before the replacement:
>
> C: old hard drive
> D: CD-ROM drive
> E: Iomaga ATAPI Zip Drive 250
>
> I partitioned the new drive into two 30 GB Partitions. When I booted
> XP, they showed up as follows
>
> C: Iomega Zip Drive
> D; CD Rom Drive
> E: new hard drive (primary boot partition, the drive on which Windows is
> installed
> F: second hard drive partition.
>
> I would like to have the drive letter arrangements as follows:
>
> C: primary boot partition (Windows boot drive)
> D: extended hard drive partition
> E: Iomega ZIP drive
> F: CD Rom Drive
>
> Assuming that I can't use Partition Magic, what is the best way to get
> the job done? I know that drive letters changing unexpectedly when you
> do a fresh install of XP is a known problem
>
(http://support.microsoft.com/default...3&Product=winx
p
> ), but what is the best way to fix this short of repartitioning and
> reformatting again? The thing that complicates this is that the Windows
> boot drive is already assigned to E:.
>
> Please help.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Mike

Hi Mike -

Unfortunately, the only way to accomplish this feat reliably is to
disconnect the ZIP drive, repartition, reformat and reinstall. The reason
being that there are thousands of places where the boot drive is stored in
the registry, system files and application files and it would be next best
thing to impossible to manually accomplish.

On the outside chance that you live always with the wind at your back,
Partition Magic does have a tool which will step through your system and
change the drives around. You cannot be booted in Windows to perform this
change, but Partition Magic will reboot to a command prompt mode and attempt
after you schedule it. In advance you can free up the C:\ drive by
reassigning the ZIP drive in devmgmt.msc (START | RUN) to another drive
letter and have a go with it. But be prepared to start from scratch as I've
never been successful in getting everything changed properly.

Jef


"Mike" <please-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
| Hi all,
|
| I have been asked to replace an ailing hard drive on a Dell Inspiron
| 8200 laptop. The drive letters on the Windows XP system were as follows
| before the replacement:
|
| C: old hard drive
| D: CD-ROM drive
| E: Iomaga ATAPI Zip Drive 250
|
| I partitioned the new drive into two 30 GB Partitions. When I booted
| XP, they showed up as follows
|
| C: Iomega Zip Drive
| D; CD Rom Drive
| E: new hard drive (primary boot partition, the drive on which Windows is
| installed
| F: second hard drive partition.
|
| I would like to have the drive letter arrangements as follows:
|
| C: primary boot partition (Windows boot drive)
| D: extended hard drive partition
| E: Iomega ZIP drive
| F: CD Rom Drive
|
| Assuming that I can't use Partition Magic, what is the best way to get
| the job done? I know that drive letters changing unexpectedly when you
| do a fresh install of XP is a known problem
|
(http://support.microsoft.com/default...3&Product=winx
p
| ), but what is the best way to fix this short of repartitioning and
| reformatting again? The thing that complicates this is that the Windows
| boot drive is already assigned to E:.
|
| Please help.
|
| Thanks in advance.
|
| Mike

Known issue. Please see KB article
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;304776

--
Cari
MS-MVP Windows Technologies - Printing/Imaging/Hardware
www.coribright.com

"Mike" <please-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi all,
>
> I have been asked to replace an ailing hard drive on a Dell Inspiron 8200
> laptop. The drive letters on the Windows XP system were as follows before
> the replacement:
>
> C: old hard drive
> D: CD-ROM drive
> E: Iomaga ATAPI Zip Drive 250
>
> I partitioned the new drive into two 30 GB Partitions. When I booted XP,
> they showed up as follows
>
> C: Iomega Zip Drive
> D; CD Rom Drive
> E: new hard drive (primary boot partition, the drive on which Windows is
> installed
> F: second hard drive partition.
>
> I would like to have the drive letter arrangements as follows:
>
> C: primary boot partition (Windows boot drive)
> D: extended hard drive partition
> E: Iomega ZIP drive
> F: CD Rom Drive
>
> Assuming that I can't use Partition Magic, what is the best way to get the
> job done? I know that drive letters changing unexpectedly when you do a
> fresh install of XP is a known problem
> (http://support.microsoft.com/default...&Product=winxp
> ), but what is the best way to fix this short of repartitioning and
> reformatting again? The thing that complicates this is that the Windows
> boot drive is already assigned to E:.
>
> Please help.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Mike

Jef is correct! I didn't notice previously, that the ZIP drive had grabbed
the "C" drive letter. That's a little more of a problem.

Bill Crocker


"Mike" <please-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi all,
>
> I have been asked to replace an ailing hard drive on a Dell Inspiron
> 8200 laptop. The drive letters on the Windows XP system were as follows
> before the replacement:
>
> C: old hard drive
> D: CD-ROM drive
> E: Iomaga ATAPI Zip Drive 250
>
> I partitioned the new drive into two 30 GB Partitions. When I booted
> XP, they showed up as follows
>
> C: Iomega Zip Drive
> D; CD Rom Drive
> E: new hard drive (primary boot partition, the drive on which Windows is
> installed
> F: second hard drive partition.
>
> I would like to have the drive letter arrangements as follows:
>
> C: primary boot partition (Windows boot drive)
> D: extended hard drive partition
> E: Iomega ZIP drive
> F: CD Rom Drive
>
> Assuming that I can't use Partition Magic, what is the best way to get
> the job done? I know that drive letters changing unexpectedly when you
> do a fresh install of XP is a known problem
>
(http://support.microsoft.com/default...3&Product=winx
p
> ), but what is the best way to fix this short of repartitioning and
> reformatting again? The thing that complicates this is that the Windows
> boot drive is already assigned to E:.
>
> Please help.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Mike