Drive Letter Mess

Feb 19, 2001
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Ok, so I have this floppy drive that's also a card reader. Thus it has a MS slot, an SD slot and a CF slot.

In My Computer, I see C and D as removable disks (which I assume are the card reader drives), and E as my DVDRW.

My HD partitions are thus F, G, H, and I. What the hell do I do. I couldn't do a thing when I was setting up Windows, and so as I was creating partitions in the setup, it made my first drive F....

I clearly prefer C: as my primary drive and all that... What to do?
 

nippyjun

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
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Is this a fresh install of windows?

If not, was your Hard drive C prior to installing the card reader?

What happens to the drive letters if you remore the floppy drive?

 

MrKneecap

Member
Jul 26, 2005
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Windows XP has a Computer Management tool that allows you to change the drive letters within Windows. However, I'm fairly certain you can't change the system drive's letter (so you couldn't change your F: to C:), but the others could be changed.
 
Feb 19, 2001
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This was a brand new build. I just plugged in my HD for the first time after memtesting the new sticks.

All the space was unallocated upon setup so I needed to create partitions. That's when I realized it made me start from F.
 

Bluefront

Golden Member
Apr 20, 2002
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Card Readers do that to drive letters if the things are hooked up during the OS install (XP). I've never heard of a reliable fix without a OS reinstall....:(
 

Navid

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2004
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Disconnect the card reader. Set up the bios to give boot priority to the hard drive. Re-install. After the install is complete, hook up the card reader.
 
Feb 19, 2001
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The only thing I have installed are drivers. No programs yet. Not even FF. The only t hings I have really run are CPUz, Motherboard Monitor, Clockgen, yea....

Is there any way to change in windows?

Bleh.. I'll be reformatting soon anyways.
 

Navid

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2004
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You can change drive letters in the disk manager in XP. But, you cannot change the drive letter of the boot drive that way. You can change that using a third party utility. But, that is not recommended since all the addresses (pointers) will have to change to keep everything working. It is not worth the trouble.
 

bigboxes

Lifer
Apr 6, 2002
41,838
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Originally posted by: Navid
Disconnect the card reader. Set up the bios to give boot priority to the hard drive. Re-install. After the install is complete, hook up the card reader.


You can change the drive letters on all but the OS drive. So, if it really bothers you... time to format! :)
 

Trader05

Diamond Member
Mar 1, 2000
5,096
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81
I had the same problem with a dell laptop that had a Zip drive in the bay, came up as C: and my hard drive was D:, if you reinstall windows without the rest of the drives, it will not work, you have to format...it sucks
 

GregMal

Golden Member
Oct 14, 1999
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Hey...last time I did a fresh install with only 1 HD (4 partitions) XP wanted to call
the primary active drive E:. I had to delete the partitions twice and repartition twice
before it would start with a C: drive. This has happened to me before.
You really gotta watch it on new installs.................
 
Feb 19, 2001
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Yea... dang. I know I'm reformatting anyways. THis first format is just for overclocking and tweaking. I'll do a 2nd format to make my system ready for 24/7 use.

I plan to run 2 HDs
250gb SATA
===============
- 32-bit XP partition (16gb)
- 64-bit XP partition (16gb)
- Junk (100 gb)
- More junk (100gb)

160gb PATA
- 32-bit XP emergency installation (16gb)
- Crap (68gb)
- More crap, full laptop backup (68gb)

I'm gonna have major partition fun ^^ If everything works out, it goes C D E F for drive #1 and G H I for drive #2 with my 2 optical drives coming in next followed by the card reader..... WHEW
 

JonnyBlaze

Diamond Member
May 24, 2001
3,114
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reinstall windows. disconnect all drives / car readers besides the c: drive while installing.
hook everything up afterwards and your fine.

 

Valkerie

Banned
May 28, 2005
1,148
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This is easy. A lot of the guys in this thread are giving you BS. You can change the drive letter that contains the windows folder, and Windows will automatically adjust boot settings.

Sometimes you have to consule the Microsoft help center, that is, if you're running Windows. You can change any drive letter you want, according to your likes.

To assign, change, or remove a drive letter
Using the Windows interface

Open Computer Management (Local).
In the console tree, click Disk Management.
Where?

Computer Management (Local)
Storage
Disk Management

Right-click a partition, logical drive, or volume, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
Do one of the following:
To assign a drive letter, click Add, click the drive letter you want to use, and then click OK.
To modify a drive letter, click it, click Change, click the drive letter you want to use, and then click OK.
To remove a drive letter, click it, and then click Remove.
Important

Be careful when making drive-letter assignments because many MS-DOS and Windows programs make references to a specific drive letter. For example, the path environment variable shows specific drive letters in conjunction with program names.
Notes

To open Computer Management, click Start, and then click Control Panel. Double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management.
You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings might also prevent you from completing this procedure.
A computer can use up to 26 drive letters. Drive letters A and B are reserved for floppy disk drives, but you can assign these letters to removable drives if the computer does not have a floppy disk drive. Hard disk drives in the computer receive letters C through Z, while mapped network drives are assigned drive letters in reverse order (Z through B).
You cannot change the drive letter of the system volume or boot volume.
An error message may appear when you attempt to assign a letter to a volume, CD-ROM drive, or other removable media device, possibly because it is in use by a program in the system. If this happens, close the program accessing the volume or drive, and then click the Change Drive Letter and Paths command again.
Windows 2000 and Windows XP allow the static assignment of drive letters on volumes, partitions, and CD-ROM drives. This means that you permanently assign a drive letter to a specific partition, volume, or CD-ROM drive. When you add a new hard disk to an existing computer system, it will not affect statically assigned drive letters.
You can also mount a local drive at an empty folder on an NTFS volume using a drive path instead of a drive letter. For more information, click Related Topics.
 

JonnyBlaze

Diamond Member
May 24, 2001
3,114
1
0
Originally posted by: Valkerie
This is easy. A lot of the guys in this thread are giving you BS. You can change the drive letter that contains the windows folder, and Windows will automatically adjust boot settings.




try it.



"Windows cannot modify the rdive letter of your system volume or boot drive"

 

Valkerie

Banned
May 28, 2005
1,148
0
0
Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
Originally posted by: Valkerie
This is easy. A lot of the guys in this thread are giving you BS. You can change the drive letter that contains the windows folder, and Windows will automatically adjust boot settings.




try it.



"Windows cannot modify the rdive letter of your system volume or boot drive"


I've done it before. I had drive D, changed it drive C and everything worked fine. Though I'd say back up your files before you try this.
 

JonnyBlaze

Diamond Member
May 24, 2001
3,114
1
0
Originally posted by: Valkerie
Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
Originally posted by: Valkerie
This is easy. A lot of the guys in this thread are giving you BS. You can change the drive letter that contains the windows folder, and Windows will automatically adjust boot settings.




try it.



"Windows cannot modify the rdive letter of your system volume or boot drive"


I've done it before. I had drive D, changed it drive C and everything worked fine. Though I'd say back up your files before you try this.

it does not work. seriously, go try it now. maybe it used to work in 2k, but not in xp.



 

Oyeve

Lifer
Oct 18, 1999
22,047
877
126
Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
Originally posted by: Valkerie
Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
Originally posted by: Valkerie
This is easy. A lot of the guys in this thread are giving you BS. You can change the drive letter that contains the windows folder, and Windows will automatically adjust boot settings.




try it.



"Windows cannot modify the rdive letter of your system volume or boot drive"


I've done it before. I had drive D, changed it drive C and everything worked fine. Though I'd say back up your files before you try this.

it does not work. seriously, go try it now. maybe it used to work in 2k, but not in xp.

What about editing the boot.ini file after changing the letters?
 

Navid

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2004
5,053
0
0
Originally posted by: Valkerie
This is easy. A lot of the guys in this thread are giving you BS. You can change the drive letter that contains the windows folder, and Windows will automatically adjust boot settings.

You may want to read this (from Microsoft) before you make that statement again somewhere! Read the first bullet in the first paragraph.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307844