Do two C: drives cause a problem?

[ggull]

I cloned my C: drive to a new (larger) drive using HDClone, then without
going into windows turned off the computer and physically replaced the old
boot drive with the clone. Everything works fine, new C: drive acting just
like old C: (and I created an extra partition from the extra space on the
new drive). (these are all SATA drives IIRC)

My question (before I do something stupid) is: what happens if I now try to
install the old "C:" drive, say in an eSATA enclosure, to use as storage?
Will I be able to reassign an unused letter to it, or will I hopelessly
confuse the system?

As far as I can figure out (it's drattedly hard to get a handle on what's
actually going on) the drive letter resides on the drive itself. (I noticed
this when I copied my secondary drive, call it D:, to an eSATA new drive E:,
which I then switched in ... and it was E Which of course brings up the
question of what happens if you plug a USB or eSATA drive with the same
letter as an internal drive other than C: But the boot drive is complicated
because the old C: drive presumably still thinks it's the active partition,
or does that not reside on the drive?

Any links to sites /tutorials explaining this for mortals would also be much
appreciated!

 

[David Vair]

We will be able to re-use the old drive without much difficulty. The "C:" representation is really
for you, Windows keeps track of the drives differently. Just put the drive into the enclosure of
your choosing, and you will need to go into Disk Management and Re-Partition and Format the drive.
If you want to clone a new drive and want to have it use the old letter, the old drive can not be
physically attached the first time you boot with the drive attached.

 

[ggull]

Thanks Dave, I suspected something like that but didn't want it to freeze up
on me than come here and be told "boy, everybody knows not to do that!"

And if you have a simple reference, website or book, that covers this sort
of stuff -- i.e. how Windows keeps track of drives, boot process, etc -- it
would be appreciated. It seemed like it was much easier to get a foot in
the door back in the DOS days when it was kind of assumed everybody needed
to know at least a bit ... now it seems more divided into two worlds, on the
one hand mere 'users' who just follow scripts, and otoh the guild of gurus
with the true mystical knowledge.

 

[Lil' Dave]

I cloned my C: drive to a new (larger) drive using HDClone, then without
going into windows turned off the computer and physically replaced the old
boot drive with the clone. Everything works fine, new C: drive acting just
like old C: (and I created an extra partition from the extra space on the
new drive). (these are all SATA drives IIRC)

My question (before I do something stupid) is: what happens if I now try
to install the old "C:" drive, say in an eSATA enclosure, to use as
storage? Will I be able to reassign an unused letter to it, or will I
hopelessly confuse the system?

As far as I can figure out (it's drattedly hard to get a handle on what's
actually going on) the drive letter resides on the drive itself. (I
noticed this when I copied my secondary drive, call it D:, to an eSATA new
drive E:, which I then switched in ... and it was E Which of course
brings up the question of what happens if you plug a USB or eSATA drive
with the same letter as an internal drive other than C: But the boot
drive is complicated because the old C: drive presumably still thinks it's
the active partition, or does that not reside on the drive?

Any links to sites /tutorials explaining this for mortals would also be
much appreciated!

If left alone, XP maintains "drive" letters by history of access order from
time of installation. Some USB thumb drives may automatically take the
other end of the spectrum.

There can only be one "C:" drive designation. Whether a previous clone
source is onboard, on an external USB or SATA enclosure has no bearing. It
will receive another "drive" letter designation.

A boot drive is selected from the bios setup. Active or not, a hard drive
partition has no "thinking ability".

Dave