How do you rename drive letter for the system drive?

[Zoinks]

My windows XP drive got renamed from C: to D:. (if you want to know how look here: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...tid=27&threadid=1961178&enterthread=y)

I've found two potential solutions:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=223188
and
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415/

However since I can't boot into windows anymore, can anyone tell me how I could get to regedit or diskpart from the command line? I can't from the console.

 

[ForumMaster]

you can't boot? you might be able to do a repair. have you tried to boot from the second drive?

try booting with only the system drive plugged. no optical drives. it should rename it to C. good luck.

 

[Smilin]

Do NOT reformat or reinstall!

This is easily corrected.


That one KB you mention has the fix you need: edit the mounteddevices key.


You just need to be able to get into the registry. The easiest way would be regedit from another box on the network. If that is not an option then load a repair copy of your registry long enough to boot, fix the original, then swap it back into place.

This KB article does not apply to your problem but it contains very detailed steps on how to drop in a repair or restore point copy of your registry...

307545 How to recover from a corrupted registry that prevents Windows XP from starting
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;307545

Be SURE as you perform the steps you are renaming the hives in system32\config. If you overwrite them you won't have anything to fix once you get booting.

Also, don't bother trying to boot until you first undo whatever hardware change you made. Otherwise the same thing will just happen to the repair registry.

Once you are booting you can fix your original using regedit. You'll want to use the "load hive" feature of regedit to load your system and/or software hives from system32\config (the ones you renamed).

In addition to performing the edits on the mounteddevices key in your system hive I would also suggest clearing the path out from Userinit found in:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Just clear the path out of the stored value so it only says userinit.exe That way if you goof up mounted devices you still have a good shot at booting to make another attempt without redoing all these shenanigans again.

 

[Zoinks]

Thanks for the great insight Smilin.

The easiest way would be regedit from another box on the network.

I've got another box but I don't know how to regedit over the network and I'm not sure how to boot the computer to a state where I can get network access.

his KB article does not apply to your problem but...

Ok, I get how to backup the registry and restore a System Backup registry so that I can boot up. How then do I get at the old (bad) registry to fix it? regedit would only load up the new one. Can I just notepad the files I made here?:

md tmp
copy c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\windows\tmp\system.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\software c:\windows\tmp\software.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\sam c:\windows\tmp\sam.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\security c:\windows\tmp\security.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\default c:\windows\tmp\default.bak

 

[Smilin]

No, you can't notepad them hehe.


See Regedit helpfiles for info on "load hive". Here is the quick version:

Fire up regedit.
Highlight Hkey_local_machine.
Hit File | Load hive
Navigate to c:\windows\tmp (or wherever) and double click the hive you want (system or software).
It will ask for a name. Anything will do. Call it 'badreg' or something.
Under HKLM you will now see 'badreg'
When done, be sure to File | unload hive while 'badreg' is selected. The hive does NOT unload by itself when regedit is closed.