Wrong %SystemRoot%

[xieliwei]

Hello,
I have recently cloned my current windows partition to another
harddrive with a bigger partition. However, when I boot into windows, I
get frequent crashes by svchost.exe. On further check, it seems like
windows is booting from my new drive but variables such as %SystemRoot%
and %SystemDrive% are somehow pointing to the older partition (G.
This causes Windows to still depend on the older partition and removing
the older harddrive prevents windows from starting up. How are these
system variables defined and how do I change them so as to remove the
dependency on the older drive?
Thanks!

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hello,
I have recently cloned my current windows partition to another
harddrive with a bigger partition. However, when I boot into windows, I
get frequent crashes by svchost.exe. On further check, it seems like
windows is booting from my new drive but variables such as %SystemRoot%
and %SystemDrive% are somehow pointing to the older partition (G.
This causes Windows to still depend on the older partition and removing
the older harddrive prevents windows from starting up. How are these
system variables defined and how do I change them so as to remove the
dependency on the older drive?
Thanks!

Edit HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices and rename
\DosDevices\G: to DosDevices\C:. If some other drive
letter occupies the C: position, rename that one first.

 

[xieliwei]

Thanks for the reply! That worked like a charm!

Is it possible to explain what that change in the registry did? I
thought it should just change the drive letters the drives were
assigned with.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Thanks for the reply! That worked like a charm!

Is it possible to explain what that change in the registry did? I
thought it should just change the drive letters the drives were
assigned with.

When you cloned your disk, WinXP made a guess as to which
volume label it should associate with which drive letter. It did
not get it right (which explains why cloning disks is not an MS-
supported operation). By changing these references manually,
you attached to correct drive letters to the correct volume labels.

Normally one changes drive letters with the Disk Manager
(diskmgmt.msc). This is more or less the same as modifying
the registry. However, the Disk Manager won't let you change
the driver letter of the system partition, because this could be
suicidal. That's why you had to apply your superior human
intelligence and do it manually in the registry!

 

[xieliwei]

Gee, thanks a lot for explaining that! Another step ahead to understand
the workings of Windows, sigh.