Harddrives

[Bill]

I have Windows XP Pro. I ran out of space on my
harddrive, so I purchase a larger drive and had it
installed. Once installed it became the master and the
old drive became the slave. The installer named the
drives OLDDRIVE C: for the new larger drive and the
smaller drive OLDDRIVE F:, so I thought. come to find out
that as I was making changes on the C: drive I was
acually making changes to the F drive because the was the
primary drive.

My problem is this the F drive should really be named C:
drive, but I can't find out how to do this. I want the
new larger drive to be C: and the old smaller drive to be
F: just until I save all the data on the old drive then I
will reformat it for a data drive. In the BIOS setup the
larger drive is correctly named the master, but it should
be C: shoudn't it?

Any information would be appreciated

Thanks, Bill

 

[Crusty \(-: Old B@stard :-\)]

If the drives are jumpered correctly, and if the partitions are setup
correctly (primary and logical), and if you install the operating system to
that particular drive - then it will be seen as the C: Drive!

 

[Jerry]

I have basically the same problem as Bill. How does one
install system files on a drive that has data installed?
My new large drive is D: and the old smaller drive is C:
I have swapped jumpers and cable connectors, but I have
been unable to get Windows Disk Management to swap drive
designations. No where can I seem to find instructions,
or even a comment on how this is done. Please help!!
Jerry

 

[D.Currie]

You can't change the drive letter on the system partition. And if you
somehow managed to do so, not much would run, as all the shortcuts, registry
entries, etc. would be pointing to an incorrect letter.

Your only choice would be to format the drive and reinstall.

Or live with D. Windows XP doesn't care. On my dual-boot system, XP is on D
and I haven't had a single problem with it.

 

[D.Currie]

I have Windows XP Pro. I ran out of space on my
harddrive, so I purchase a larger drive and had it
installed. Once installed it became the master and the
old drive became the slave. The installer named the
drives OLDDRIVE C: for the new larger drive and the
smaller drive OLDDRIVE F:, so I thought. come to find out
that as I was making changes on the C: drive I was
acually making changes to the F drive because the was the
primary drive.

My problem is this the F drive should really be named C:
drive, but I can't find out how to do this. I want the
new larger drive to be C: and the old smaller drive to be
F: just until I save all the data on the old drive then I
will reformat it for a data drive. In the BIOS setup the
larger drive is correctly named the master, but it should
be C: shoudn't it?

Not necessarily. Master and slave have little to do with drive letter
designations. And it really doesn't matter to the computer what XP calls the
drive. If it's really bothering you that much, the only thing you can do is
format the drive and start over. Or take the thing back to whoever installed
it for you and tell that person that you want XP to use C as a drive letter.
Then he can format it for you. If you didn't specify that you wanted XP to
be on C you might get charged for the extra work, though. If you did
specify, perhaps the person doing the work didn't know how to make it
happen, or was too lazy. Which is a whole other can of worms.