Swap Drive Letters and User's Folder?

[Steve Meyerson]

My Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop became unbootable when I attempted to
install SP3 for XP Pro.

My plan was to do a complete reinstall. My data's backed up on an
external drive, so I tried to reformat, but was rejected. It showed 3
partitions (I thought I had only one) and wouldn't let me delete any
of them. I can live with the "extra" partitions, so I went ahead with
the install, but during the install, about 40 files were missing (it
said).

So I did a "Repair" only. It seemed to work fine and the computer
functions ok, but I have two glitches (which I probably caused
somehow) I'm hoping someone can help me with.

1. Somehow it (or I?) installed the OS on Drive D: instead of C: I
have many shortcuts and maybe other programs which point to C: drive
and it would be much easier to swap drive letters than change all the
shortcuts/programs. Can I swap the letters and if so, how?

2. The "Repair" added a new user's folder under "Documents and
Settings". The old folder is named "Steve" and contains my
"Identities" including emails, cookies, etc. The new folder was
created and named "Steve.LAPTOP.000 (LAPTOP is the name of the
computer). All user-specific data goes to the new folder. I know I can
copy and paste the old to the new, but it won't let me rename the new
folder (says it is required for Windows to run properly). Is there a
way I can go back to the old name and get rid of the extra folder?

Thanks for any help.

Steve M.

 

[DL]

The winxp cd has all the capabilities of deleting all partitions &
installing, or your Dell revovery cd's do, you may have to amend your bios
settings to enable boot from cd

 

[Jim]

My Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop became unbootable when I attempted to
install SP3 for XP Pro.

My plan was to do a complete reinstall. My data's backed up on an
external drive, so I tried to reformat, but was rejected. It showed 3
partitions (I thought I had only one) and wouldn't let me delete any
of them. I can live with the "extra" partitions, so I went ahead with
the install, but during the install, about 40 files were missing (it
said).

So I did a "Repair" only. It seemed to work fine and the computer
functions ok, but I have two glitches (which I probably caused
somehow) I'm hoping someone can help me with.

1. Somehow it (or I?) installed the OS on Drive D: instead of C: I
have many shortcuts and maybe other programs which point to C: drive
and it would be much easier to swap drive letters than change all the
shortcuts/programs. Can I swap the letters and if so, how?

2. The "Repair" added a new user's folder under "Documents and
Settings". The old folder is named "Steve" and contains my
"Identities" including emails, cookies, etc. The new folder was
created and named "Steve.LAPTOP.000 (LAPTOP is the name of the
computer). All user-specific data goes to the new folder. I know I can
copy and paste the old to the new, but it won't let me rename the new
folder (says it is required for Windows to run properly). Is there a
way I can go back to the old name and get rid of the extra folder?

Thanks for any help.

Steve M.

Yes, my Inspiron 6000 has three partitions. One perhaps contains the MBR.
The second contains the recovery partition. The third contains Windows.
You can restore the system to its as delivered condition by using the
recovery partition as described in the manual. However, instead of using
the recovery partition, you should have prepared for the need to reinstall
the current setup by creating backups with Acronis True Image.

1. No you cannot swap system drive letters easily.
2, The repair installation added an account called Steve.Laptop.1000. This
folder tree now contains those files which you access via the user name
Steve. There is no need to go back to using the folder tree called Steve.
Just take ownership of the files and move them to the new folder tree.

You still should address the issue of why the SP3 installation failed. SP3
installed on my Inspiron 6000 with no problems at all.

Jim

 

[Steve Meyerson]

Yes, my Inspiron 6000 has three partitions. One perhaps contains the MBR.
The second contains the recovery partition. The third contains Windows.
You can restore the system to its as delivered condition by using the
recovery partition as described in the manual. However, instead of using
the recovery partition, you should have prepared for the need to reinstall
the current setup by creating backups with Acronis True Image.

1. No you cannot swap system drive letters easily.
2, The repair installation added an account called Steve.Laptop.1000. This
folder tree now contains those files which you access via the user name
Steve. There is no need to go back to using the folder tree called Steve.
Just take ownership of the files and move them to the new folder tree.

You still should address the issue of why the SP3 installation failed. SP3
installed on my Inspiron 6000 with no problems at all.

Jim

Jim, thank you for the info and answering the questions I asked. I
guess I'll pretty much have to live with what Microsoft decided for
me It seems MS prefers to treat users as idiots rather than give
them specific info they can use to do certain things (IMHO).
Steve