How to stop XP from rearranging drive letters?

[John Dalberg]

My system has 5 paritions/drives: c, d, e,f & g and Windows xp resides on
drive f which is a Sata drive. c & d are one drive, e is a drive and g is
another sata drive. The Sata drives are connected to a Sata Promise board.

I am planning to remove drive e. I am guessing Windows XP is going to
rearrange the drive letters so that f becomes e and g becomes f, to fill
the gap. This will cause all sorts of problems and probably my system will
not boot because my Windows is not on drive c, the boot drive. I also have
programs that look at certain drive letters.

If XP will rearrange the drives, is there any way to stop it from
rearranging any drive letters and just leave drives as is so my system ends
up as c, d, f & g and boot as normal?

 

[Jerry]

There is no way to keep a drive letter for a hard drive that IS NOT there.
To prevent the problem you're afraid of - do not remove E:.