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Added new hard drive, reinstalled Windows, now my drive letters...

C

coomarlin

Senior member
I upgraded an older computer that was running XP. I added a brand new WD SATA hard drive but kept the old 160GB PATA drive in the computer. When when windows asked which hard disk to install XP on I selected the new SATA drive. Everything installed fine but now that I'm in windows the new drive is listed as drive E: while the older PATA drive is listed as drive C:

CAll me weird but I just like to have the OS on my C drive. Is there a way I can switch this before I start installing software or will I have to disconnect the old drive while I install the OS then hook it up afterward?
 
Originally posted by: coomarlin
CAll me weird but I just like to have the OS on my C drive. Is there a way I can switch this before I start installing software or will I have to disconnect the old drive while I install the OS then hook it up afterward?
Click to expand...

No, as long as you have a C: drive when you start installing Windows, you can't make the new Windows install C:, unless you reinstall to that partition. Also, you can't change your OS's drive letter through Disk Management. I've tried, and it just says you can't change it. The only way to be able to have your new install be C: is to unplug or remove your current Windows drive. Well, you can also delete the current C: partition, before you start the installation, if you want.

edit: Hey, I forgot to call you weird. I usually don't call people names, but you asked.😀
 
When installing XP, remove all other hard drives. If the Windows installer finds another installation of Windows on a disk, it'll leave that other drive as "C:" and you can't change the drive letter of a Windows System drive.

The best thing to do is remove the second drive and re-install Windows.
 
Thanks. I had to reinstall windows. I normally always take out extra drives and add-in cards when I do an install but I wasn't thinking properly today. Oh well, just an extra 45 minutes. I hadn't put any software on it so it wasn't like I was too far into it.
 
Originally posted by: myocardia
Originally posted by: coomarlin
CAll me weird but I just like to have the OS on my C drive. Is there a way I can switch this before I start installing software or will I have to disconnect the old drive while I install the OS then hook it up afterward?
Click to expand...

No, as long as you have a C: drive when you start installing Windows, you can't make the new Windows install C:, unless you reinstall to that partition. Also, you can't change your OS's drive letter through Disk Management. I've tried, and it just says you can't change it. The only way to be able to have your new install be C: is to unplug or remove your current Windows drive. Well, you can also delete the current C: partition, before you start the installation, if you want.

edit: Hey, I forgot to call you weird. I usually don't call people names, but you asked.😀
Click to expand...

Actually, you can,... this is very useful in typically a dual boot situation or if you want something other than c:\windows (only applies to xp and vista as older OS you could install wherever you like,... MS did this to simplify things for end user support reasons mainly)

You cannot change the drive letter of the drive that windows thinks is the main one with the OS, whatever the letter is (typically c, but not always) through disk management,... you have to edit the registry,.... and possibly have to boot to safe mode with command prompt only, then repair the install to desired drive

start-run-regedit
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices.
Then rename \DosDevices\C: to something else for now, this would be old install
Rename \DosDevices\D: to \DosDevices\C:
Now rename previously renamed \DosDevices\D: to \DosDevices\D:
Reboot to safe mode command prompt
run repair of install

YES you are right that a simple unplug of the drive would be better,...

However the above info comes in handy for certain situations, like if you don't want c:\windows, you want x:\windows as the active drive (xp and vista will install to c:\windows by default unless the find one there of the same OS already). Another is if you want to dual boot xp and vista and not have each of them think they are c:\windows which they will do by default even though on 2 separate partitions,... and you want xp to say c:\windows and vista to say d:\windows, for old fashioned sanity sake,...(mine for one on my system)

I just wanted to add for FYI only,.. though in this situation Myocardia's advice of simple unplug was the best advice
 
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