Reordering drive letters in XP

[I Dubya]

I've just added an other partition to my 2 hard-drive, dual boot (me/xp)
system using Partition Magic Pro 7 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?

Nomad

 

[Alex Nichol]

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?

You can use Disk management to change drive letters of any partitions
other than the one where the initial boot is, or the one where the XP
System's 'Windows' folder is (if different, usually both are C. No
problem with your case; Control Panel - Admin Tools - Computer
Management, select Disk Management and look lower right for the graphic
of the drive or CD icon. R-click in a partition or on an icon and
change drive letter