Drive letters messed up

[Newsscanner]

After a reformat and re-install (with prior attempts to fix the boot sector)
my drive letters have all been mixed up.
Where it used to be C: (main disk) D: (2nd HDD) E: (CD-RW) and F: (DVD) it
is now C: (2nd HDD) D: (CD-RW) E: (DVD) and F: (main HDD).
It might not be an issue to some people, but I find it highly confusing and
annoying.
Also, trying to fix the problem tells me that the default drive's letter
cannot be changed and (I had the same once before) attempting this gave me
another major crash.
Has anyone got any suggestions as how to put this right as I don't want to
fiddle around and ending up having to do another reformat.
OS: Win XP Home, SP1 and most of the updates installed.
Thanks,
Newsscanner.

 

[Widow Twankey]

That all sounds very strange. Windows XP will only install on the C drive.

--
Yours

Widow Twankey

** now shacked up with the Giant Beanstalk **

 

[Mike Brannigan [MSFT]]

That all sounds very strange. Windows XP will only install on the C drive.

--

That is not quite correct.
You can install Windows XP to any hard drive in your system.
It will still place the boot loader on the active partition but the OS may
reside on any suitable disk.

--
Regards,

Mike
--
Mike Brannigan [Microsoft]

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights

Please note I cannot respond to e-mailed questions, please use these
newsgroups

 

[Pavel]

The best way to correct this would be to re-install Windows XP from scratch
but this time, before you start, unplug the second HDD from the cable (or
disable the drive in BIOS - but this is not a sure thing). The reason for
this is that the installer sees the second HDD and it also thinks that this
drive has an OS on it and this OS seem to be on C drive because that is what
the BIOS is seeing. By disabling this second HDD, the Windows XP installer
will only see the first HDD and nothing else that may look like C.
As far as the shift in the drive letters, Windows XP has the option that you
can use to change any drive, except the system drive. So use it to change
your CD-RW, DVD and also the second HDD to any drive letter you want.

 

[Fitz]

Try disconnecting all except the hard drive with the OS on it. Clear the
CMOS on your motherboard. Restart and let the drive be redetected. Then
re-connect your other drives.

Fitz

 

[Newsscanner]

Thanks for the contributions so far, folks.
But does anyone know of a way of sorting this which would not involve
opening up my PC case ?

Thanks.

 

[Al]

I had the same thing happen! I finally dissconnected my second hdd and
burner, formated and reinstalled then hooked things back up. It works great
now!

 

[Donald McDaniel]

Thanks for the contributions so far, folks.
But does anyone know of a way of sorting this which would not involve
opening up my PC case ?

Thanks.

Is one of your drives a temporary drive, such as a USB drive or a Zip
drive? If you install XP on drive0 while a temporary drive is connected
and turned on, it may reshuffle the drive letters, such as you have
indicated.

There is no way of changing the drive letter of your system drive (now
F short of reinstalling XP with the offending drive(whatever it is)
not physically connected.

--
Donald L McDaniel
Post all replies to the Newsgroup,
so that all may be informed.
Remove the obvious to reply by email.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

[Al Christoph]

That's news to me I've been running it on the H: drive for a couple of
years! (With shiver shake and barf - ME - on the C drive.) Worked great
until I swapped mother boards.

Regards,
Al