Reinstalling XP to new drive

[timsteraat]

Hi all,

My original XP install got somewhat hosed, and I was having Internet problems and other weird quirks. My friend gave me a 30GB HD to reinstall XP on so I'd be up and running again. I used the jumpers on the drives to set the then current boot drive to slave, and made the new drive the master. I booted the machine to CD, and proceeded to format and install XP to the new drive. When finished, I looked at my system and noticed that the old drive was still my C: drive (not D: as I'd expected), and the new drive was F: (after my D: (DVD) and E: (CD-RW) drives)!!!

I thought this odd, but figured "What the heck, as long as it works". Well, it ain't working too well. I get at least one BSOD daily, and the system can no longer multitask worth a crap! The reason I wanted the original drive in there 'as is' is because it is a 120 GB, and I have about 90GB of data on it - which obviously won't fit on the 30!!!

Soooo... today, I bought a 250 GB drive that I now want to make my new boot drive, and then I figure I can copy everything I need from the 120 and then reformat that. The first problem I'm running into is that I do NOT want the 120 to be recognized as the C: drive once the 250 is formatted/installed. I tried going into "Computer Management", and re-assigning the drive letter to Z: so it would be out of the way for this process. However, it tells me I can't do that because of the presence of a Page File.

Please - somebody tell me the process I need to follow to install the 250GB drive as the C: drive, format and load XP on it, then copy over everything I need from the 120GB so I can reformat it (if the stupid system will even let me!!!)

HELP ME PLEASE!!!

TIA!

--Timster--

 

[CPORonin]

Put in the 250 gig drive as master.
Disconnect all other hard drives in the machine.
Install Xp onto 250 gig.
Reconnect all extra drives.
Move over needed files.
Format extra drives as needed.
rinse and repeat

 

[OdiN]

Yup...install with only the 250GB drive in the machine and you'll be golden. You cannot change the drive letter for drive C: once windows is loaded.

 

[timsteraat]

Ok... I've done the install as you suggested, and after hooking up the 120, it shows as the F: (after the CD and DVD). I'm still installing updates and device drivers, so I'll check back for any replies.

Is this normal? I've never seen a hard drive default to a drive letter beyond optical drives. Does anyone see any potential problems with this? Thanks...

--Timster--

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: timsteraat
Ok... I've done the install as you suggested, and after hooking up the 120, it shows as the F: (after the CD and DVD). I'm still installing updates and device drivers, so I'll check back for any replies.

Is this normal? I've never seen a hard drive default to a drive letter beyond optical drives. Does anyone see any potential problems with this? Thanks...

--Timster--

The reason is because hard disk volumes and DOS drive-letter assignments are "sticky" in W2K/XP.
If that HD is still partitioned and present in the system when it boots, then Windows' will keep assigning it a "known" drive-letter, even if you move the position of the HD physically to a different position on the IDE channels.

As you found out, this causes complexities and problems, when the drive letter at issue is one assigned to the volume containing the boot files/OS.

This can also happen if you Ghost an existing OS installation over to another HD, swap HD positions on the IDE cables, and then attempt to boot from the "new" drive, with the "old" drive still attached to the computer. In that case, Windows will keep C: for the "old" drive, and attempt to access it, even though it was booted off of the "new" drive. What a mess.

Best procedure in that case, is to physically remove the "old" drive totally from the system, boot from the "new" drive once, will cause Windows' to re-assign the C: drive-letter to the new drive's boot/OS volume, and then re-connect the "old" drive.