New installation of XP is drive F: instead of C:

[John]

I just replaced my hard drive and installed XP. After the
installation, it runs fine except that it is running as
drive F: instead of C:. The Microsoft site says that this
can happen if there is a zip drive present (there is) and
to change the drive letter using Disk Management. This
will not work because it says you cannot change the boot
drive letter.

I have already registered this or I would just reinstall.
Is there any fix for this? I have many development files
that will have to be changed for using drive F: so I
really need it changed.

Thanks!

 

[Darren Curtis]

Back up the registry by creating a Restore Point.

Perform a System State backup to a file on your hard drive.

Open regedit, and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

Clear EVERYTHING out of the right hand pane. Delete all the entries in the MountedDevices.

Unplug your zip drive and detach it from the PC.

Reboot the PC. The registry entries are automatically re-created on reboot if they are not there.

The drives will be renumerated.

Best Regards,
Darren Curtis, MCSE
Microsoft Enterprise Support Engineer
Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

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[Hans-Georg Michna]

I just replaced my hard drive and installed XP. After the
installation, it runs fine except that it is running as
drive F: instead of C:. The Microsoft site says that this
can happen if there is a zip drive present (there is) and
to change the drive letter using Disk Management. This
will not work because it says you cannot change the boot
drive letter.

I have already registered this or I would just reinstall.
Is there any fix for this? I have many development files
that will have to be changed for using drive F: so I
really need it changed.

John,

just reinstall. Changing the drive letters is possible, but it
is not a good idea because Windows would still have many
references to the wrong drive letters in the registry and in
configuration files.

Product activation is not a big problem. If the new installation
does not activate over the Internet, the worst that can happen
is that you have to activate by phone, which may perhaps take 5
minutes.

Hans-Georg