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jonnyGURU
12-27-2006, 12:21 AM
Here's a good one....

My wife's HDD died. So I replaced it and reinstalled XP.

Problem is, I had the media card reader installed while I was installing XP.

So XP gave the card reader drive letters C: through G:. The boot drive is H:!

I can't change the drive letter via Disk Management because it's the boot drive.

I know I've fixed this in the past, but can't seem to remember how.

Anyone?
CAD4466HK
12-27-2006, 01:08 AM
unplug the card reader, does your XP disc have SP1?
jonnyGURU
12-27-2006, 01:15 AM
Unplug it... and then what? Is the H: drive going to become C: when I reboot?

It's XP SP2.
CAD4466HK
12-27-2006, 01:20 AM
FDISK, set your hard drive as the 1st fixed disk, make sure your mobo boot
commander is set for the drive at boot, or just reinstall windows without the
card reader then plug it in later, or in DM in windows,change drive letter path
which could corrupt the kernel;)
CAD4466HK
12-27-2006, 01:21 AM
Unplug it... and then what? Is the H: drive going to become C: when I reboot?

It's XP SP2.

Is it running off of a USB header on your mobo?

If your OS is seeing them as removable drives, then shutting down then unplug, then restart should see it as C:
Bbq
12-27-2006, 02:01 AM
Just remember that partition magic may work about 50% of the time for this, but the other half, you lose the partition and all your data.

Too many bad experiences with partition magic.
jonnyGURU
12-27-2006, 08:43 AM
FDISK, set your hard drive as the 1st fixed disk, make sure your mobo boot
commander is set for the drive at boot, or just reinstall windows without the
card reader then plug it in later, or in DM in windows,change drive letter path
which could corrupt the kernel;)

DUH! You think I'm stupid? I know all that. :eek: I'm wanting to change the drive letters without having to reinstall everything! :D I simply do not have the time to reinstall Windows on the same PC over and over again. :(
Oklahoma Wolf
12-27-2006, 08:52 AM
Last time I did this I used Partition Magic, but I too have had more bad than good experiences with that software.
CAD4466HK
12-27-2006, 09:34 AM
DUH! You think I'm stupid? I know all that. :eek: I'm wanting to change the drive letters without having to reinstall everything! :D I simply do not have the time to reinstall Windows on the same PC over and over again. :(

No prob genius
Don't get mad at me because you frelled up your hard drive and are too lazy to do it right
jonnyGURU
12-27-2006, 09:58 AM
No prob genius
Don't get mad at me because you frelled up your hard drive and are too lazy to do it right

Bite me.

:p

There's a difference between lazy and busy. :cool: If I didn't have to build 5 rigs for CES and get them all shipped to Vegas by the end of the week, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I just can't believe Microsoft lets this happen. In Win 2K and all previous versions, you could install an OS with a gazillion drives attached and it would always make the boot drive C:

What I was thinking of was I used a program in the past that would change drive letters and then go into the registry and change all references to that drive letter as well. It was pretty cool, but I don't think it will change the boot drive either, especially seeing how it runs in Windows.

I don't think it's going to be a problem, though. Initially it was a concern because STUPID HP drivers will only install on C: You can't change the install path. So I plugged a hard drive in, made it's drive letter C:, and then ran the HP install programs. Other than that unique circumstance, I can't see right now why it's going to be a problem.
CAD4466HK
12-27-2006, 10:05 AM
I'll let it slide because of CES:p

But I too have known to be "lazy" and keep a Ghost drive of XP and a PQBoot{Drive Image} sector on every drive in the house;)
SixIron
12-27-2006, 10:59 PM
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223188

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844
galapogos
12-28-2006, 03:18 AM
I have the exact same problem. I was helping my friend install his PC, and he had an old IDE HDD along with a new SATA one, and Windows just assumed the IDE one is C: I wasn't even given an option to change this when installing windows, and it also didn't give a sh*t about my boot priority either, probably because of the enumeration timing. In any case, I posted the same question on the AT forums and the general consensus there is that it's not possible, but those 2 links look interesting...
jonnyGURU
12-28-2006, 07:53 AM
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223188

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844

Cool. Thanks.

The second one is the usual way and doesn't work with boot drives, but that first one should work.

Of course, something that the first one doesn't mention is that you'll also need to scour the registry for installed program paths and change that drive letter as well.
galapogos
12-28-2006, 08:47 AM
Of course, something that the first one doesn't mention is that you'll also need to scour the registry for installed program paths and change that drive letter as well.

ouch. that sounds painful, and i can foresee missing out a lot of em.
jonnyGURU
12-28-2006, 09:35 AM
I wish I could find that program I had. It was cool. You just put in the old drive letter and the new drive letter and it goes through all of the registry and shortcuts and changes the drive letter of all of the paths. It was slick. I think it came with Virtual Drive. :(
Sir_ReeL
12-29-2006, 05:16 AM
I'm not positive, but Bootit http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html "may" do the trick. There are many helpfull utilities here, anyways.

What if you simply disconected all drives except the boot drive to set it as Drive 0?

_ReeL
jonnyGURU
12-29-2006, 08:00 AM
What if you simply disconected all drives except the boot drive to set it as Drive 0?


Tried it. Unplug everything but the boot drive, drive still comes up as H:.

Still won't let you change in Disk Management either.
EsaT
12-29-2006, 09:04 AM
I've once tried to change those letters and I got the feeling that once XP is installed to some drive letter it stays there until next format.

I wonder what's the reason behind this, it should be easy to use relative paths in registry and config files for pointing to XP's own files.
But I guess it's just too much to ask from Macro$hafter.
Sir_ReeL
12-29-2006, 09:26 AM
I've once tried to change those letters and I got the feeling that once XP is installed to some drive letter it stays there until next format.

Believe you're probably correct. I'm sure several of us have "Googled" our way to frustration. I'd love to know the answer to this dilema, but I'd probably not remember it if I needed it..._ReeL
Baron
12-29-2006, 02:12 PM
Just wondering.............could you just have your 'C' drive plugged in and clear the CMOS which may untangle XP.
Or, use the option in the BIOS to select the boot drive on start up..........can't remember if this will stay that way for every boot, or if you have to select your main drive every time.


I'll go now...........:D
jonnyGURU
12-29-2006, 03:32 PM
It's not a CMOS issue. It's Windows.
Sir_ReeL
12-29-2006, 08:41 PM
I'd guess it could be done with an imagining program and a second hard drive and a little time...but time you don't got, right now? No, the iage would also be "H:" Partition Magic; Disk Commander; Bootit!; maybe Knoppix. The last two are free and the others may have a free trial period. _ReeL