Help With Changing Hard and CD-ROM Drive Letters in XP Pro

[powerMarkymark]

I found this over at TweakXP.com Link and when I tried it (with Big Bertha, specs below) I was warned by WinXp that if I changed drive letters some of my programs may not work properly!

Is this true?

This is my hard drives setup:

HDD 1 has 60GB - three partitions with OS on 5GB(C- drive), programs installed on second partition 25GB(E - drive) and Games/files on third partition 30GB(F - drive).

HDD 2 has 60GB(D - drive) - one partition (so far) for files and backups.

I don't particullarly like the alphabetical order of the drives and want to switch the letters around.


If you want to change your hard drive letter or your cd-rom drive letter, this is the tip you want.

1. Click the start button

2. Go into Administrative tools (either in the start button or in "All Programs"

3. From Administrative Tools, go into "Computer Management"

4. In "Computer Management", click on "Disk Management" under "Storage" from the left menu

5. You should see a window from the lower right hand corner open (it shows all the hard disk drives and cd-rom drives)

6. To change...

...hard drive, click on the hard disk with a blue horizonal bar, the box should be shaded; next right click that box that you desire to change the letter then click on "Change Letter Drive and Path"

...cd-rom drive, click on the box that you desire the drive letter; next right click that box that you desire to change the letter then click on "Change Letter Drive and Path"

7. click the "change..." button

8. from the "assign the following drive letter", select the letter you want to assign to the hard drive or the cd-rom drive

9. click ok

10. click ok

11. (optional) redo the whole step to reassign other hard drives or cd-rom drives


There! You have succeeded in changing the hard drive or cd-rom drive letter.

 

[AndyHui]

You know, I think I've had to put this up 5 times in the last 24 hours or so.

Please read the FAQ: How do I change drive letters?

 

[Dreadogg]

LOL I opened this post to see that!

 

[nihil]

is it me or have i seen this thread before? mainly ~10 times in the past week.

 

[Wolfsraider]

andy thanks for the new faq's they were very good and very informative

now if only people would read them that needed them hmm...

 

[zigCorsair]

<< LOL I opened this post to see that! >>



haha - I2

 

[powerMarkymark]

All nice and fine gentlemen. But I DID READ THE FAGQs. I just want clarification on what was written in them. Not all of us have been around computers as long as others. I certainly do not want to go changing a drive letter and the end result having my programs not responding.

Please clarify the following.........

..................................

Before you modify drive-letter assignments, note the following items:

Changing the drive letter of the system volume or the boot volume is not inherent to Disk Management.

Many MS-DOS-based and Windows-based programs make references to a specific drive letter (for example, environment variables). If you modify the drive letter, these programs may not function correctly.

..................................


Now it does say that programs MAY not function properly.

In my SPECIFIC setup as outlined in my original post, will my programs function properly or not if I change it's drive letter?

Thanks to those who respond with some decorum.

 

[n0cmonkey]

It may cause problems, but nothing a quick reinstall of the application (at worst) would fix. These applications are probably the ones that you would want to stay away from anyhow.

 

[AndyHui]

powerMarkymark: My FAQ states exactly why programs will not work if you decide to change the drive letter. If there are pointers written in the Registry or any other particular place, then once the drive letter for the partition on which that program resides changes, then the program will not work.

Since you did not give much specific information in the first place, the statement in the FAQ that you quoted applies not only to you, but to EVERYONE, regardless of specific situation.

Everything that I write in the FAQs is for a reason.....I don't simply put something in for the hell of it.

All I simply ask is for people to read about it and think about it for a moment. It doesn't matter that you may not be as experienced as some other members on the forums. The FAQs are there for you to learn from.

 

[powerMarkymark]

<< powerMarkymark: My FAQ states exactly why programs will not work if you decide to change the drive letter. If there are pointers written in the Registry or any other particular place, then once the drive letter for the partition on which that program resides changes, then the program will not work.

Since you did not give much specific information in the first place, the statement in the FAQ that you quoted applies not only to you, but to EVERYONE, regardless of specific situation.

Everything that I write in the FAQs is for a reason.....I don't simply put something in for the hell of it.

All I simply ask is for people to read about it and think about it for a moment. It doesn't matter that you may not be as experienced as some other members on the forums. The FAQs are there for you to learn from. >>




Thank you. That was MUCH clearer.