Reordering Drive Letters in XP

  • Thread starter Thread starter I Dubya
  • Start date Start date
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I Dubya

I've just added an other partition to my 2 hard-drive, dual boot (me/xp)
system using Partition Magic Pro 5 under WinME. I originally had:

HD 0
3 Primary partitions: WinME, WinXP and one empty ready for Linux (Drive C
when active)
1 Extended Partition containing a single logical partition for data. (Drive
D)

HD 1
1 Extended partition containing 3 logical partitions for data (Drives E, F &
G)

CD Drive H

DVD Drive I

I added the new partition to the Extended partition on HD 0. Partition
Magic and WinME show the new partition as Drive E, having moved all the
remaining partitions up by one drive letter as intended/expected. However,
under XP, My Computer and Window Explorer show the new partition as Drive J.
I wanted it to be drive D. I thought Disk Management in XP would be able to
reorder the drives but I'm not so sure now. Will it reorder all the drives
if I tell it to change the new partition drive J to drive D? Probably not.
I've also seen a couple of posts that have alluded to a Registry hack of
deleting all or some(?) (they were not too clear) of the values listed in
HKLM\System\MountedDevices and rebooting to force XP to rediscover the
drives. This, on the face of it, appears very simple and easy as I'm not
averse to doctoring the Registry. But is it correct? So what do I have to
do to get XP to recognise the new partition as Drive D?
 
You can change drive letters in the disk manager.

Click Start, right click My Computer, select Manage, in the left column
expand Storage, select Disk Management,
Open to full screen so you can see all the drives.

Click Action and All tasks, to Change drive letter and paths.
You highlite the drive you want to move first.
Keep in mind, you must move other drives up the alphabet temporarily, to
vacate where you want your drive to be.

The only drive you cannot move is the boot drive with windows on it.

I Dubya said:
I've just added an other partition to my 2 hard-drive, dual boot (me/xp)
system using Partition Magic Pro 5 under WinME.
Click to expand...

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