Change Drive Letter of Boot Drive...

[mujahid7ia]

I recently clean installed Windows XP Pro on my old Compaq. For some reason, it assigned driveletter E: to the main boot drive, C: to the Zip drive, and D: to the CD-ROM drive. A: is still floppy. Is there any way I can cahnge the main boot drive to C: ? That is the most important cahnge I want because in older versions of InstallShield, there must be some free space in the C: drive for data... I also, however, would like my CD drive to be E:, but thats not as important.

Specs:
Compaq Presario 7594
566 MHz Celeron
128MB RAM
HDD and Zip on IDE channel 0, HDD master, zip slave
CDROM on IDE Channel 1
HDD: 10GB Quantum (now part of Maxtor) Fireball

Thanks in advance for any help!

[tompika]

Control Panel - Performance and Maintenance - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Disk Management

Right-click the drive - Change Drive Letter

[dqtus]

actually I want to do this too since I have 2 boot drives since I transfered the data onto a new HD and I want to use the new one to be C and it's currently I. The problem is that all my programs are pointing to the C and that's my OLD drive! I figured if I changed the name everything should be fine but when you're using XP you can change the drive letters through that method but it won't let you change the letter of the drive you are currently running the OS off of. Meaning changing the cd-rom, zip drives, and secondar HD aren't a problem but you still can't change your boot letter since you're running on it. At least I can't. Anyone with any ideas?

[wulf109]

Motherboard BIOS usually allows you to specify the HD to boot from. I have two HD's with different OS on each,I use the BIOS to select which to boot from.

[mujahid7ia]

Control Panel - Performance and Maintenance - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Disk Management

Right-click the drive - Change Drive Letter

Doesn't work for your boot drive. Thanks though.

actually I want to do this too since I have 2 boot drives since I transfered the data onto a new HD and I want to use the new one to be C and it's currently I. The problem is that all my programs are pointing to the C and that's my OLD drive! I figured if I changed the name everything should be fine but when you're using XP you can change the drive letters through that method but it won't let you change the letter of the drive you are currently running the OS off of. Meaning changing the cd-rom, zip drives, and secondar HD aren't a problem but you still can't change your boot letter since you're running on it. At least I can't. Anyone with any ideas?

In your case PartitionMagic might be of help, beacuse you have two drives.

Motherboard BIOS usually allows you to specify the HD to boot from. I have two HD's with different OS on each,I use the BIOS to select which to boot from.

This Compaq OEM BIOS is crap!!! Almost completely useless!!

[808smokey]

Turn off your computer. Take the side off. Unhook the Power plug from the CD-ROM, ZIP, and 2nd hard drive. Reboot the computer. Now it's your C: Drive

[mujahid7ia]

But when I plug the drives back in, will it change drive letters again?

[808smokey]

But when I plug the drives back in, will it change drive letters again?

Yes, XP will reasign the drive with new letters or you can change them to whatever you want

[mujahid7ia]

But when I plug the drives back in, will it change drive letters again?

Yes, XP will reasign the drive with new letters or you can change them to whatever you want

OK, thanks, I'll try it. Good thing the case is already open or I would have a hard time motivating myself...

[mujahid7ia]

It didn't work I disconnected CDROM, ZIP, but the HDD was still Drive E:... I only have one HDD, BTW. Any other suggestions?

[bottle-necked]

Unplugging your other drives and booting up the computer might fool Win98 or ME but it won't fool XP. Your OS drive letter will still be the same and the other drives will come back in as they were.

Changing drive letters will work on your other drives by first creating an empty spot for the lowest letter drive. This will require you to move your intended last drive up an extra letter to start with, move the other drives to the letter you desire them to be, then move the last drive back down. It's a little tricky but you can figure it out I'm sure.

I think you're going to reinstall. I would unhook the ZIP drive, make certain your hard drive is pinned master and on IDE/0 and on the end of the ribbon cable. During the install delete the partition and let XP create a new one. This will insure a clean install from scratch. With this setup I don't see any reason why it won't come in as drive C:. Your CD-ROM will be D. Later add your ZIP and it will be E. If you are wanting an extra partition create it when you first get to the desktop. Change your drive letters around so it is D, and move the others up one letter. Of course this will require you to leave the space for this partition when letting XP create its OS partition during the install process.

Good luck.

[gmatov]

I don't have XP, so maybe this is not germane.

To the original poster, are you sure you are Master/Slave jumpered? If that 10 gig is one partition, you could not have installed to the E drive, as that would have been the zip. Win assigns letters as Pri Master; C, Sec Master: D, in your case CD-ROM, Pri Slave; E, your Zip. In your case, E as the OS drive, you would have to have the 1 gig Jazz drive to even approach a full install's space requirement.

Win in any other flavor would not do that.

dg, how did you transfer? Did you Ghost it, or some other utility, or did you just install and let it install to where it wanted to? You always, in my non-XP experience, choose where to install to. Did you have the option?

wulf, in your case, with ME, not 98ME, either 98 or ME, did you install to your selected partition? If you had ME (or 98 ) installed (older OS has to be installed first ) you would have a true dual boot system, a choice on bootup, and( I can't believe it) no going into BIOS to select.

Keep us posted.

Cheers,

George

[dqtus]

I actually used the program that came along with my maxtor HD to transfer the data. basically my new drive is a 250gb drive split into 2 partitions a 50 and a 200gb. The first of course is the 50 which has an exact duplicate of my OS. I was actually planning to take out the C drive completely and put the new drive into that place but it seems like someone said it wouldn't work. I have 3 hard drives and the C drive is the master to the D drive so I wanted to try to make the new drive the master to the D drive and hopefully it will read as C. Well I'll test it and if it doesnt work then back to the drawing board!

[Gritz]

If you plan to take out the old drive then this should work (WinXP). Install the new drive (temporarily) as a second drive in place of your current cdrom by using it's ribbon cable and power connector. (Just lay the case over and slip a piece of cardboard between the new drive and the side of the case to keep from shorting it out). Boot normally (with 2 hard drives now) and create the partitions you want on the new drive using the "Administrative Tools" in the Control Panel. Now use Norton's Ghost feature of "Clone" to duplicate your old hard drive to your new hard drive. (with 50 GB and 200 GB you should have no "space" problems. I'm not sure but I think the "Clone" feature started with Norton 2003 version. Shut down, remove the old drive and replace with the new in it's original place (jumper should still be "single or master" ) and boot without the cdrom. Check the drive letters and if all looks well shutdown and reconnect the cdrom and any zip drives you might have. Reboot .... should be ok.

[mujahid7ia]

Unplugging your other drives and booting up the computer might fool Win98 or ME but it won't fool XP. Your OS drive letter will still be the same and the other drives will come back in as they were.

Changing drive letters will work on your other drives by first creating an empty spot for the lowest letter drive. This will require you to move your intended last drive up an extra letter to start with, move the other drives to the letter you desire them to be, then move the last drive back down. It's a little tricky but you can figure it out I'm sure.

I think you're going to reinstall. I would unhook the ZIP drive, make certain your hard drive is pinned master and on IDE/0 and on the end of the ribbon cable. During the install delete the partition and let XP create a new one. This will insure a clean install from scratch. With this setup I don't see any reason why it won't come in as drive C:. Your CD-ROM will be D. Later add your ZIP and it will be E. If you are wanting an extra partition create it when you first get to the desktop. Change your drive letters around so it is D, and move the others up one letter. Of course this will require you to leave the space for this partition when letting XP create its OS partition during the install process.

Good luck.

Actually, I'm not planning to re-install the OS, I did less than a month ago
I don't understand your second paragraph... "empty spot"??

To the original poster, are you sure you are Master/Slave jumpered? If that 10 gig is one partition, you could not have installed to the E drive, as that would have been the zip. Win assigns letters as Pri Master; C, Sec Master: D, in your case CD-ROM, Pri Slave; E, your Zip. In your case, E as the OS drive, you would have to have the 1 gig Jazz drive to even approach a full install's space requirement.

Well, here's the story: The PC originaly came with HDD 10GB divided into C: and D:, the CDROM E: and of course FDD A:. It had Win98SE. Then I installed XP (upgrade), same driveletters etc. Then, I decided to clean intsall WinXP Pro SP1, but this time with the HDD in one partition. BUT, I foolishly put in the zip100 drive at the same time, and then installed XP. The HD came out E:, the ZIP C:, the FDD A:, and the CDROM D:.

[bottle-necked]

I don't understand your second paragraph... "empty spot"??

I was trying to explain how to rearrange the drive letters in XP's Disk Managment program.

Lets say I had:
C=OS
D=CD/ROM
E=DVD
F=Video HDD

and I wanted:
D=Video HDD
E=CD/ROM
F=DVD

I would first make the DVD=G, change the CD/ROM to E, change the Video HDD to D, then the DVD to F. This can be done in XP by right/clicking on the drive and choosing 'Change Drive Letter'. The 'empty spot' was created when I moved the DVD to G.

[gmatov]

To the original poster, are you sure you are Master/Slave jumpered? If that 10 gig is one partition, you could not have installed to the E drive, as that would have been the zip. Win assigns letters as Pri Master; C, Sec Master: D, in your case CD-ROM, Pri Slave; E, your Zip. In your case, E as the OS drive, you would have to have the 1 gig Jazz drive to even approach a full install's space requirement.

Well, here's the story: The PC originaly came with HDD 10GB divided into C: and D:, the CDROM E: and of course FDD A:. It had Win98SE. Then I installed XP (upgrade), same driveletters etc. Then, I decided to clean intsall WinXP Pro SP1, but this time with the HDD in one partition. BUT, I foolishly put in the zip100 drive at the same time, and then installed XP. The HD came out E:, the ZIP C:, the FDD A:, and the CDROM D:.[/quote]

That sounds to me like adding the Zip, you had it jumpered as Master, and the HDD either as Slave or possibly Cable Select, CS.

If your machine is like every other Compaq, Dell, Gateway I've seen, if you only have 1 IDE device, you have a single connector cable. If you added the Zip, you would have to replace that with a standard dual device cable. Is your layout such that you had to connect the end of that wire to the Zip? Especially with Cable select, that guarantees the Zip will be Master, C:\, the HDD will be Primary Slave, E:\. CD or whatever is on the end of the other cable will be D:\, whatever as Slave on the other cable, F:\

Disconnect and reconnect in proper sequence, making sure you either set jumpers to proper Master/Slave config, or all as Cable Select, CS, then make sure the ones you want as Master are on the end of the cables.

You might need a re-install, anyhow, as Win2k for one has been known to get confused when relocated, XP probably does, 98 doesn't.

If you want to dual boot, install 98/ME, whatever you have, start XP install, click no when it asks if you want to upgrade, when it gets to the screen with the choice to "copy install files to HDD", and "Allow me to select the partition to install to", make your choice.

You can install both OS's to the same drive, and you will get a Choose the OS screen at bootup. Personally, I use a second partition, but not required.

Good luck.

Cheers,

George

[mujahid7ia]

I don't understand your second paragraph... "empty spot"??

I was trying to explain how to rearrange the drive letters in XP's Disk Managment program.

Lets say I had:
C=OS
D=CD/ROM
E=DVD
F=Video HDD

and I wanted:
D=Video HDD
E=CD/ROM
F=DVD

I would first make the DVD=G, change the CD/ROM to E, change the Video HDD to D, then the DVD to F. This can be done in XP by right/clicking on the drive and choosing 'Change Drive Letter'. The 'empty spot' was created when I moved the DVD to G.

Ahh, I see. Thank you, I will try it.

gmatov, thanks for your suggestion as well; I'll the jumpers/IDE cables.

[mujahid7ia]

bottle-necked, that didn't work because i wanted to change the boot drive letter, and windows doesn't allow it.... Is it possible in partitionmagic 8 to change letter and all progs/etc taht point to that drive letter to be updated?

gmatov, they were all already CS, thanks anyway...

i guess the only way is to clean install, w/e, i can live with E:/WINDOWS for a while

oh well, if i run into install probs, i can always copy over the program files from my other PC... thanks for all the help everbody

[808smokey]

they were all already CS, thanks anyway...

CS should really only be used with Servers setups... Master and slave should be used.

[Gritz]

808smokey is right. CS (Cable Select) doesn't use the standard 40 conductor ATA IDE Ribbon Cable. It's a special ribbon cable with wire #28 shorted at the center connector making it the Master, and open at the end making that connection the Slave. Changing the drive at the end to master and the center to slave .... might be the answer.