Can I change drive letter under Windows XP?

LuckyTaxi

Diamond Member
Dec 24, 2000
6,044
23
81
I had to reinstall (GRRRRR) and now my C drive is my secondary drive where my personal documents are. Drive D is where windows is installed. Can I swapped them?
 

LuckyTaxi

Diamond Member
Dec 24, 2000
6,044
23
81
Originally posted by: Smilin
If you installed to D: you can't really change it without a reinstall.

234048 How Windows 2000 Assigns, Reserves, and Stores Drive Letters
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=234048

Yea ... doing a reinstalling AGAIN as we speak.

For some reason windows partitioned my hard drive and drive C is listed as a logical drive!
I think it's fvcking up my freebsd installation. each time i go install freebsd is doesnt recognize the windows partition.
 

Smilin

Diamond Member
Mar 4, 2002
7,357
0
0
If you have a drive that's listed as a logical drive it means it's on an extended partition. Windows Will look for the first active PRIMARY partition and try to assign C: to it. If that fails it will look for ANY primary partition and assign C:. If that fails it will start looking at extended partitions.

This means if you have an extended partition that you want to have C: assigned to it's not going to happen. Change it to a primary partition and possibly mark it as active.
 

LuckyTaxi

Diamond Member
Dec 24, 2000
6,044
23
81
Its all fvcked up. It might explain why partition magic didnt work.
I'm backing up my files now and starting all over.

I HATE having windows setup do the partitioning. Im going to start with one drive and then use PM to split things up.
 

Smilin

Diamond Member
Mar 4, 2002
7,357
0
0
Uh.

You may have that backwards. If you let Windows do the partitioning from the beginning you won't have any problems. It won't make the first partition on your drive an extended one for instance.

Partition Havoc can do some downright scary stuff to your drive. Most folks don't spend much time up to their elbows in a partition table or EBR and aren't aware of it. I would recommend avoiding it if at all possible. It's your drive though.
 

LuckyTaxi

Diamond Member
Dec 24, 2000
6,044
23
81
Originally posted by: Smilin
Uh.

You may have that backwards. If you let Windows do the partitioning from the beginning you won't have any problems. It won't make the first partition on your drive an extended one for instance.

Partition Havoc can do some downright scary stuff to your drive. Most folks don't spend much time up to their elbows in a partition table or EBR and aren't aware of it. I would recommend avoiding it if at all possible. It's your drive though.

hmmmmmmmmmm ... i think the partitioning scheme started with windows. everytime i tried to split it, there would be 8MB in the beginning of the partition. it would be unused.
 

Smilin

Diamond Member
Mar 4, 2002
7,357
0
0
8MB could be a gap between an EBR and a Boot sector, but it sounds a bit big. You shouldn't really have an EBR with Windows doing the partitioning until you get to a 4th partition anyway. Dunno. Like I said - Partition Magic does some odd stuff.

I'm not sure of your exact layout but the sure fire way to ensure a partition gets assigned C: is to clear all the partitions and then create one new one. It will be an Active Primary and will get C: every time.
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
30,672
0
0
You may have that backwards. If you let Windows do the partitioning from the beginning you won't have any problems. It won't make the first partition on your drive an extended one for instance.

Either way would be fine, but frankly PQMagic is easier and supports more partition types so it's what I'd use given only those two options. Mixing tools is when things start to get hairy and having an extended partition be the first on the disk shouldn't be a problem.
 

Smilin

Diamond Member
Mar 4, 2002
7,357
0
0
Nothingman: You're right it shouldn't normally be a problem, but if you have a primary partition on the disk as well you'll never get the extended partition to become C:. Check that KB above, it's good stuff.
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
30,672
0
0
But it really doesn't matter what the drive letter is unless it changes after the initial install and even then that's a failing of Windows itself, the system root should be able to change letters without breaking things. Well technically the system root, and all drive access, shouldn't use drive letters, but maybe that's just me =)
 

EXman

Lifer
Jul 12, 2001
20,079
15
81
I had a USB card reader hooked up during my install and somehow my SCSI main HD was Drive "F" ? as in WT"F" :D