HELP: how to change letter of system drive

[Andrew Wan]

I have a 120GB hard drive, with the following partition table:

C: 32GB Primary FAT32
Rest 88GB Extended containing:
D: 32GB Logical FAT32
E: 56GB Logical NTFS

Everything was fine until I decided to reformat & reinstall Windows XP in
C:. I inserted my CD and got to the partition table setup blue screen. I
deleted C: and recreated it using the 'c' button. Once Windows was
installed, it has a drive letter of D:, while my first logical is now C:.
Why did this happen? It has never happened like this before.

Now it stores autoexec.bat, config.sys, io.sys, msdos.sys ntldr in C: which
is my 2nd partition. How can I get C: to the 1st partition? I cannot change
drive letters on system drives....

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Re: how to change letter of system drive

"Andrew Wan" <andrew_wan1980@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:expEcvrTIHA.536@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>I have a 120GB hard drive, with the following partition table:
>
> C: 32GB Primary FAT32
> Rest 88GB Extended containing:
> D: 32GB Logical FAT32
> E: 56GB Logical NTFS
>
> Everything was fine until I decided to reformat & reinstall Windows XP in
> C:. I inserted my CD and got to the partition table setup blue screen. I
> deleted C: and recreated it using the 'c' button. Once Windows was
> installed, it has a drive letter of D:, while my first logical is now C:.
> Why did this happen? It has never happened like this before.
>
> Now it stores autoexec.bat, config.sys, io.sys, msdos.sys ntldr in C:
> which is my 2nd partition. How can I get C: to the 1st partition? I cannot
> change drive letters on system drives....
>

While it is possible to force a letter change, you would end up
with a very unhappy Windows installation. You either live with
your drive letter assignment or else re-install Windows. Disconnect
all external disks and make sure that Windows goes into the first
partition.

 

[nikioglesby]

Re: how to change letter of system drive

"Pegasus (MVP)" wrote:

>
> "Andrew Wan" <andrew_wan1980@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:expEcvrTIHA.536@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> >I have a 120GB hard drive, with the following partition table:
> >
> > C: 32GB Primary FAT32
> > Rest 88GB Extended containing:
> > D: 32GB Logical FAT32
> > E: 56GB Logical NTFS
> >
> > Everything was fine until I decided to reformat & reinstall Windows XP in
> > C:. I inserted my CD and got to the partition table setup blue screen. I
> > deleted C: and recreated it using the 'c' button. Once Windows was
> > installed, it has a drive letter of D:, while my first logical is now C:.
> > Why did this happen? It has never happened like this before.
> >
> > Now it stores autoexec.bat, config.sys, io.sys, msdos.sys ntldr in C:
> > which is my 2nd partition. How can I get C: to the 1st partition? I cannot
> > change drive letters on system drives....
> >
>
> While it is possible to force a letter change, you would end up
> with a very unhappy Windows installation. You either live with
> your drive letter assignment or else re-install Windows. Disconnect
> all external disks and make sure that Windows goes into the first
> partition.
>
>
>

 

[John John]

Andrew Wan wrote:

> I have a 120GB hard drive, with the following partition table:
>
> C: 32GB Primary FAT32
> Rest 88GB Extended containing:
> D: 32GB Logical FAT32
> E: 56GB Logical NTFS
>
> Everything was fine until I decided to reformat & reinstall Windows XP in
> C:. I inserted my CD and got to the partition table setup blue screen. I
> deleted C: and recreated it using the 'c' button. Once Windows was
> installed, it has a drive letter of D:, while my first logical is now C:.
> Why did this happen? It has never happened like this before.

Adding to the advice already received from Pegasus, when you delete and
recreate partitions during the Windows setup, after you are done with
the partition work and before you start to install Windows you should
exit and restart the Windows setup, that will force a reenumeration of
the drives and avoid drive letter mix ups like the one you have experienced.

John