Changing primary drive letter

[KenV]

I just installed XP Pro to a new HD and unfortunately had a ZIP drive connected
to the computer, so the primary drive was assigned to F: instead of C:. Some
program installations don't seem to like the primary drive to be F instead of C.
I have installed a few programs already so would like to avoid reinstalling
Windows and starting all over again just to change the drive letter.

Is there /any/ way, including finding and replacing in the registry, using
Partition Magic and/or Ghost and/or R-Drive Copy to copy an image of this drive
to my slave HD, that I can salvage what I have and change the primary drive
letter to C?

Thanks very much.

Ken

 

[Guest]

I know with PM you can change the drive letter. I've done the same thing a
few times myself. Just when it asks you to remap all references to 'F', just
say yes.

Good luck, hope this helped.

Joshua

 

[KenV]

Joshua,

Thanks for your response.

I have PM 7.0 (latest version is 8.0 and they have been bought out by Symantec
and I don't know how different 8.0 is), but are you sure PM will change the
primary boot partition letter? I had run PM 7.0 and it didn't look as though you
could do it, but I may have missed something as I frequently do.

Ken

 

[Guest]

I'm almost positive I've renamed the primary drive before, and I'm also
running PM7. I think if you right click the drive in PM it's one of the last
options.

Good luck.

 

[KenV]

Here's a followup that may be useful to others.

I changed the drive letter of my primary boot drive from F: to C: using
Partition Magic 7.01. It would not reboot but said it was looking for a batch
file to remap the drive in the registry. It simply hung up at that point and
wouldn't even go into safe mode.

I then used the reinstall from the XP CDROM, which went through after two tries,
but even though the PM batch file did run during the reinstall it dod not change
the F: references to C: in the registry, so after reinstall many of the
previously installed programs seemed to be missing. Otherwise, the IExplorer,
Outlook Express, etc. all worked. Interestingly, it reverted back to SP1 and I
had to reinstall SP2.

I ran the PM map drive program from Windows and although it listed 140 or so
references to F: that were to be changed to C: and said that it did that, it
didn't do it, even after several tries. I then found a freeware registry search
and replace program that did the job perfectly. Since then almost everything has
worked well except for two minor glitches about which I am posting questions
here.

The question is whether it would have been better just to reformat the drive and
start all over--might have been quicker and easier despite having to set up OE
and reinstall the 3rd party programs again. But I would not advise anyone to use
PM 7.01 to change the primary drive letter. Maybe 8.0 works better.

Ken

 

[Guest]

Guys you don't need to do all that. You can change the drive letter through
Administration tools/computer management.. Double click Storage and then Disc
management... Then all you have to do is right click over the drives you want
to change (one at a time of course) and the option to change drive letter
will appear, its that simple

 

[KenV]

Windows says you can't change the drive letter of the primary boot
partition. I tried it anyway just the way you suggested and it couldn't be
done. In the Microsoft KB it says you are stuck with the letter assigned to
the boot drive when you initially install XP. Mine was assigned "F" when I
installed XP because I had a ZIP drive attached which Windows saw as a HD
and assigned it "C".

Ken