Make C: drive a different letter.

[Coldkilla]

I've got a storage drive that somehow ended up being my "C:" drive and my new hard drive with a fresh install of Windows XP, which is now the "F:" drive. I try to change the drive letter of the storage drive (The C: drive) to something like "X:" in order to open up the letter "C:" so I could make my primary drive the "C:" drive but it says:

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

Is there anything I can do without reformating everything?

 

[nickbits]

Not that I know of. even if something claimed to be able to do it most likely you'd have issues

 

[Coldkilla]

crap... oh well. Thanks.

 

[WildHorse]

have you tried going (assuming Windows XP) into

Start /

Control panel /

Adminsstrative tools /

Computer management /

Disk management?

In there you can set your drive letters.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

Yeah, that happened to me once. Had two partitions, C and D. Went to do a clean install, nuked C, XP setup automatically set the Data partition to C: and the new system partition turned to D:. There was no way i could change it. Do a reinstall. Or learn to live with F:\Windows, which I discovered just doesn't feel right.

 

[techs]

Years ago there was a program or two that would go in and change all the values in the registry and change the windows drive to c:, but they didn't always work.
I haven't seen or heard of them for some years.
I agree that you need to reformat and reinstall.
Either go into the bios and disable all other drives except the one you want to install windows into, or unplug any external usb devices. Note that even a usb card reader can show as a drive, so make sure they are unplugged or disabled.

 

[C1]

For some reason Windows wouldn't reassign my drive letters. As previously posted my new drive would boot but windows wouldn't load, reason being windows referenced the C drive. I found the following and did it myself. I now have my new 250gb drive assigned as C:

Microsoft Knowledge Based Article 223188

Change the System/Boot Drive Letter

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

Make a full system backup of the computer and system state.
Log on as an Administrator.
Start Regedt32.exe.
Go to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

Click MountedDevices.
On the Security menu, click Permissions.
Verify that Administrators have full control. Change this back when you are finished with these steps.
Quit Regedt32.exe, and then start Regedit.exe.
Locate the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

Find the drive letter you want to change to (new). Look for "\DosDevices\C:".
Right-click \DosDevices\C:, and then click Rename.

Note You must use Regedit instead of Regedt32 to rename this registry key.
Rename it to an unused drive letter "\DosDevices\Z:".

This frees up drive letter C.
Find the drive letter you want changed. Look for "\DosDevices\D:".
Right-click \DosDevices\D:, and then click Rename.
Rename it to the appropriate (new) drive letter "\DosDevices\C:".
Click the value for \DosDevices\Z:, click Rename, and then name it back to "\DosDevices\D:".
Quit Regedit, and then start Regedt32.
Change the permissions back to the previous setting for Administrators (this should probably be Read Only).
Restart the computer.

http://www.techsupportforum.co...ign-drive-letters.html

 

[mcveigh]

dead thread I know..... but I found that MS article and followed the directions. didn't work for me. Windows wont boot even in safe mode. trying to figure it out this weekend

 

[C1]

You probably just need to just change the boot.ini so it points to the right partition.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289022