How do I change drive letter of C: drive

[Peter]

I have a HD with partitions c: f: g: h:

C: is FAT16, rest are FAT32.

(d: e: are CDs)

I have a win2k installation (on F which is fine.

I also have a bare win2k installation (on H which I use for
emergency stuff only, e.g. tape backup restores, main win2k
installation registry backups etc. It is in this 2nd win2k install
that for some reason drive C: shows as J: and I can't edit it (in disk
admin tools) because it says you can't change the letter of the boot
drive.

It isn't a huge deal because I don't use this 2nd win2k install much
but it would be good to get it right.

How did it happen? I don't know; possibly when doing a drive-copy a
while ago and leaving the copied drive in there by accident while
booting (windows reallocates all the drive letters then....)


Peter.

 

[philo]

I have a HD with partitions c: f: g: h:

C: is FAT16, rest are FAT32.

(d: e: are CDs)

I have a win2k installation (on F which is fine.

I also have a bare win2k installation (on H which I use for
emergency stuff only, e.g. tape backup restores, main win2k
installation registry backups etc. It is in this 2nd win2k install
that for some reason drive C: shows as J: and I can't edit it (in disk
admin tools) because it says you can't change the letter of the boot
drive.

That's correct.
no matter where your windows is installed, the bootfiles will still
have to be on your active primary partition

 

[Leonard Severt [MSFT]]

(e-mail address removed) (Peter) wrote in 4ax.com:

I have a HD with partitions c: f: g: h:

C: is FAT16, rest are FAT32.

(d: e: are CDs)

I have a win2k installation (on F which is fine.

I also have a bare win2k installation (on H which I use for
emergency stuff only, e.g. tape backup restores, main win2k
installation registry backups etc. It is in this 2nd win2k install
that for some reason drive C: shows as J: and I can't edit it (in disk
admin tools) because it says you can't change the letter of the boot
drive.

It isn't a huge deal because I don't use this 2nd win2k install much
but it would be good to get it right.

How did it happen? I don't know; possibly when doing a drive-copy a
while ago and leaving the copied drive in there by accident while
booting (windows reallocates all the drive letters then....)


Peter.

I don't know exactly how it happened but I assumed that was the next
free drive letter when the second copy of Windows 2000 was installed.
You are stuck with the drive letter, you can't change the OS drive once
Windows is setup.

Leonard Severt

Windows 2000 Server Setup Team

 

[Peter]

That's correct.
no matter where your windows is installed, the bootfiles will still
have to be on your active primary partition

I agree; drive C: is the boot drive, but for some reason the 2nd
install of win2k calls it J:

It used to be C: but got renamed somehow...

It doesn't seem to affect that win2k install because it lives on H:
but it would affect any applications which I might want to install on
C: while the PC is booted into that win2k install...


Peter.

 

[philo]

I agree; drive C: is the boot drive, but for some reason the 2nd
install of win2k calls it J:

It used to be C: but got renamed somehow...

It doesn't seem to affect that win2k install because it lives on H:
but it would affect any applications which I might want to install on
C: while the PC is booted into that win2k install...

At this point you'd have to reinstall from scratch I think...

I;ve done that myself already!

 

[Peter]

(e-mail address removed) (Peter) wrote in 4ax.com:


I don't know exactly how it happened but I assumed that was the next
free drive letter when the second copy of Windows 2000 was installed.
You are stuck with the drive letter, you can't change the OS drive once
Windows is setup.

Leonard Severt

Windows 2000 Server Setup Team

I can definitely state that C: was C: when that copy of win2k was
installed. The bare copy was actually the first to be installed,
because when I build a new machine I always

install dos6.2 from a DOS boot diskette
fdisk/format c: for 2GB (FAT16 obviously)
install CD drivers so CD drives work under DOS
install win2k and in the Setup create FAT32 drives (in this case F: G:
H
install bare copy of win2k on H: (only app is the tape software)
install main working copy of win2k on F: (or restore the tape to F

What changed C: to J: for the bare copy must have been an incident
when the 2nd drive of a mirror pair became visible as a standalone
drive.

There must be a registry entry for this though I can see why win2k
stops users changing it.



Peter.

 

[Leonard Severt [MSFT]]

I can definitely state that C: was C: when that copy of win2k was
installed. The bare copy was actually the first to be installed,
because when I build a new machine I always

install dos6.2 from a DOS boot diskette
fdisk/format c: for 2GB (FAT16 obviously)
install CD drivers so CD drives work under DOS
install win2k and in the Setup create FAT32 drives (in this case F: G:
H
install bare copy of win2k on H: (only app is the tape software)
install main working copy of win2k on F: (or restore the tape to F

What changed C: to J: for the bare copy must have been an incident
when the 2nd drive of a mirror pair became visible as a standalone
drive.

There must be a registry entry for this though I can see why win2k
stops users changing it.



Peter.

Yes it can be changed in the registry. However if it first was a
different drive letter and then got changed Windows 2000 will not start
up because it can't start userenv which has absolute path in the
registry.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;223188

Leonard Severt

Windows 2000 Server Setup Team