drive F: ----> C: ???

Bootsy

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drive F:\ ----> C:\ ???

ok a friend's computer is buggered. When installing the OS (XP), the installed forgot a rule in teching. He forgot to disconnect the IDE Zip drive from the computer. SOOOOOOO The OS recognized the Zip drive as drice C:\ and the actual local disk with the OS on it as drive F:\. My question is:
can I change the local hard drive with the OS on it into drive C:\ without formatting and reinstalling (of course with the Zip disconnected in that case)?
 
Well, you could try cloning from the ZIP drive to the actual hard disk. And then formatting the ZIP disk.
You can change drive letters in Disk Management in XP.
But it might be easier and cleaner to do a full re-install properly.
 
well I would format, I do it regularly, but the thing is that she has some programs that she doesnt have the cd's for. I am actually planning on ghosting the image of the hard disk and formatting but I'm not sure if that will work because if I ghost it, it might take the info of the drive being set as f:....damn burnout installer.
 
Originally posted by Bootsy
well I would format, I do it regularly, but the thing is that she has some programs that she doesnt have the cd's for. I am actually planning on ghosting the image of the hard disk and formatting but I'm not sure if that will work because if I ghost it, it might take the info of the drive being set as f:....damn burnout installer.

no cd's eh...:rolleyes:
 
This is tricky, but can be done, since Disk management will not allow you to change Boot Drive letters, ie C:\

A little reg editting:

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

Right-click \DosDevices\C:, and then click Rename, change that to \DosDevices\Z:, then change \DosDevices\F: to \DosDevices\C:. Now you will change the \DosDevices\Z: to whatever drive letter you want to assign to the zip drive.
 
ok j79zlr, I did the steps carefully and not only did it not work, I could not boot into windows. I had to repair the installation....... well good news, the c drive is now the local disk.
 
well, alls well that ends well, I should have mentioned that you would have to fix the boot.ini file so it would point to C: and not F:, sorry, slipped my mind.
 
j79zlr: Hey thanks for the great tips. Did you ever actually try it before suggesting this? I did it but after that my pc would lock up on the Welcome to windows screen...

!!DO NOT TRY THIS!!

Modding your boot.ini woulnd't of affected anything since it already booted in windows. Next time you say something, try it first.

The best way to make sure your primary master will be c:\ is unplug the other hard drive when you install just to make sure.
 
Thank you FourDiceS for the reply. Yea it unfortunately wasn't me who installed the OS in the first place..I wouldnt commit such a mistake (well maybe if I was careless). And j79, please make sure that your tips are actually effective before posting, I know you are trying to help and it is appreciated, but it took me like 4 hours where it could have taken me 5 minutes using partition majic...but anyway, hindsight is always 20/20
 
Forget that, right click my computer, click manage click disk management. You can then right click each drive and change the drive letter allocation to one which isn't in use.

BTW you need to be an administrator to do this.
 
I tried that but the system won't let you change the drive letter of the drive where the OS is installed..........
 
You may be able to do a recovery installation of xp, but you will have to install the updates from microsoft again (eg SP1).

Boot from the original XP cd, when the menu comes up select install xp. It will then ask you if you want to install over the existing xp installation or do a fresh install. You should select the repair option. I will find out the link to a better explanation of how to do it.
 
If this does work, then why did it make 2 people not able to boot... I was stupid to even change it and believe something without even researching it.

Windows did start, but it would stop and welcome to windows...
 

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