XP reversed my drive letters!

Mike89 · Post by **Mike89** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 6:03 pm

I have two hard drives. First one has two partitions. First partition is "C" with XP on it. Second partition "E" is the rest of the drive.

Second hard drive "E", single partition.

Did a clean install of XP over the original. Now my drive letters are all messed up. It's now showing XP on "D" drive as disk 2. It's exactly the same size as the original "C" partition was. My original second partition "E" drive is still "E" but it's now listed at disk 2 and again exactly the same size as it was with all my data intact. My second hard drive "D" is now "E", again the same size and all data intact and listed as drive 1.

I don't know what the hell happened. How do I re-assign the drive letters back the way they were?

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 6:51 pm

should be able to do that in computer management >disk management

DoPeY5007 · Post by **DoPeY5007** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 6:54 pm

Right click my computer click manage
Storage
Disc managemnt.

You can change the letters there

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 7:46 pm

You can't change the drive letter of the boot drive from Drive management.

This happens sometimes when you do a clean windows install and there's two formatted hard drives. Not entirely Window's fault - it has more to do with the order that BIOS recognizes the drives. I've run into this problem with systems that have card readers installed: the card reader will take the C, D, E and F drives, and Windows will make the boot drive E.

The only reliable solution I've found is to do another clean install but disconnect the 2nd drive until after Windows is installed.

DoPeY5007 · Post by **DoPeY5007** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 8:23 pm

FlyingPenguin wrote:You can't change the drive letter of the boot drive from Drive management.

This happens sometimes when you do a clean windows install and there's two formatted hard drives. Not entirely Window's fault - it has more to do with the order that BIOS recognizes the drives. I've run into this problem with systems that have card readers installed: the card reader will take the C, D, E and F drives, and Windows will make the boot drive E.

The only reliable solution I've found is to do another clean install but disconnect the 2nd drive until after Windows is installed.

I have done it before in XP

It was D and I was able to change it to C

I have done it I think 5 times now. When ever I install windoes on my Dell box it seams to mess up the letters.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 9:18 pm

I can't see how it could work while running Windows. Windows can't change a drive letter if the volume is in use, and the boot drive is most certainly in use.

But I stand corrected if it works. Nothing to lose Mike. Give it a try and let us know.

Mike89 · Post by **Mike89** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 10:01 pm

I finally got it worked out. I first tried to use partition magic to change drive letters (xp won't let you change a drive letter to a boot drive). I changed them but then xp wouldn't boot.

This computer wasn't actually mine. I had two previous hard drives with all my data on them. I built a computer for a friend and used those two hard drives and installed a fresh copy of XP he had on them. After XP would not boot, I shut off the computer and reversed the two SATA cables on the motherboard SATA ports. I then booted up with the XP disk again and this time it showed the correct letters on where it was going to install. So I installed xp again and it came out right this time. This motherboard did not specify where to connect the boot drive. There were just ports 1-6. I could have sworn I hooked the hard drive with the previous OS on port 1. When I switched it around, it worked right.

DoPeY5007 · Post by **DoPeY5007** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 1:57 am

FlyingPenguin wrote:I can't see how it could work while running Windows. Windows can't change a drive letter if the volume is in use, and the boot drive is most certainly in use.

But I stand corrected if it works. Nothing to lose Mike. Give it a try and let us know.

It takes a re-boot after

DoPeY5007 · Post by **DoPeY5007** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 1:59 am

so I just tried it now, and it wont let me change the boot partition.

Maybe I was able to do it before any SP is installed.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 9:35 am

In my experiences the boot drive letter is locked down once Windows is installed. If you think about it, there are a lot of things that would be broken (program shortcuts for instance).