Changing a drive letter

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jonathan Livni
  • Start date Start date
J

Jonathan Livni

Hi,
I'd like to change a partition drive letter in Windows Vista.

I tried using "Disk Management", but I received the following error:
"Windows cannot modify the drive letter of your volume. This may happen if
your volume is a system or boot volume, or has page files."

The partition is marked as: Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition)

It doesn't have anything on this partition, except a file called: BOOTSECT.BAK

I'm not sure if this is relevant, but I have a dual-boot system with Ubuntu.

Please help :)
 
Hi Jonathan,
The partition is marked as: Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition)
Click to expand...

You can't change it because of the "Active" designation. Windows (any
version, not just Vista) will not allow for a drive letter change to any
volume designated as active/boot/system. In this case, the active volume is
the one first loaded by the pc prior to choosing the OS to load. Until the
bootloader is moved and a different volume is designated as the active one,
the ability to change the drive letter will not be available.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com
 
Rick Rogers said:
Hi Jonathan,


You can't change it because of the "Active" designation. Windows (any
version, not just Vista) will not allow for a drive letter change to any
volume designated as active/boot/system. In this case, the active volume
is the one first loaded by the pc prior to choosing the OS to load. Until
the bootloader is moved and a different volume is designated as the active
one, the ability to change the drive letter will not be available.
Click to expand...


If he's only using Vista, he would not need any BOOTSECT files. It must be
a remnant of an old XP installation. Also, its only a .BAK file, and would
be safe to delete. It should be safe to make into a primary partition.
It's easy using something like Acronis Disk Director.

ss.
 
Richard Urban said:
He is also booting Ubuntu!
Click to expand...

BOOTSECT.DOS is not a Linux file either. It may have been created for some
reason by the Linux multi-booter on the NTFS partition, but I doubt it, and
in any case, this is a .BAK file, which just has to be made by Windows, and
can be deleted with no problem at all.

ss.
 
Hi,
Thanks for so many replies so fast.
All hard drives are SATA.
Here is a map of my drives and partitions:

== Disk 0 - 250GB ==
--- 10GB - Unallocated ---
wanted to allocate for Ubuntu swap, but never did.
--- 10GB - D: - Video Scratch ---
System, Active, Primary Partition
Used for scratch files of video editing progs
--- 230GB - F: - Documents ---
Primary Partition
My Vista Documents partition

== Disk 1 - 250GB ==
--- 70GB - C: - Vista ---
Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition
Vista and program installation partition
--- 180GB - V: - Video ---
Primary Partition
Used as video editing space

== Disk 2 - 250GB ==
--- 10GB - E: - Vista Swap ---
Primary Partition
Was used for windows page file up until I reinstalled Vista. Didn't
get
to move it there yet, but I intend to.
--- 50GB - Ubuntu ---
Primary Partition
Ubuntu installation
--- 190GB - H: P2P ---
Primary Partition
Used for downloaded and P2P files


Basicly what I want is to change drive F: (Documents) to D: which is
currently taken by the Video Scratch partition. This is important for me as
to allow Photoshop Elements (PE) recognize my pictures which reside in the
documents partition. PE thinks it should be on D: ...

What should I do?
How do I make the partition not active?
Does Acronis do that?

Rick wrote: "the active volume is
the one first loaded by the pc prior to choosing the OS to load. Until the
bootloader is moved and a different volume is designated as the active one,
the ability to change the drive letter will not be available."

How then do I move the "Active" to a different partition?

Thanks
Jonathan
 
Basicly what I want is to change drive F: (Documents) to D: which is
currently taken by the Video Scratch partition. This is important for me as
to allow Photoshop Elements (PE) recognize my pictures which reside in the
documents partition. PE thinks it should be on D: ...
Click to expand...

Simple:

First change "D" to another available letter.

Change "F" to "D". Might have to restart to make the first change
effective, but probably won't.

No assign whatever drive letter you wish to the former "D"
 
Paul Montgomery said:
Simple:

First change "D" to another available letter.

Change "F" to "D". Might have to restart to make the first change
effective, but probably won't.

No assign whatever drive letter you wish to the former "D"
Click to expand...

He can't unless change D: to anything as long as it is Active.

ss.
 
Jonathan Livni said:
--- 10GB - D: - Video Scratch ---
System, Active, Primary Partition
Used for scratch files of video editing progs
--- 230GB - F: - Documents ---
Primary Partition
My Vista Documents partition
Click to expand...

Basicly what I want is to change drive F: (Documents) to D: which is
currently taken by the Video Scratch partition. This is important for me
as
to allow Photoshop Elements (PE) recognize my pictures which reside in the
documents partition. PE thinks it should be on D: ...

What should I do?
How do I make the partition not active?
Does Acronis do that?
Click to expand...

Acronis is a company. One of their products, Disk Director Suite, is able
to do it. The trial only deals with very small partitions, but it may be
able to do this - not sure. Have you tried formatting the partition? That
should do it.
Rick wrote: "the active volume is
the one first loaded by the pc prior to choosing the OS to load. Until the
bootloader is moved and a different volume is designated as the active
one,
the ability to change the drive letter will not be available."

How then do I move the "Active" to a different partition?
Click to expand...

You do not need to move it anywhere as long as you are sure there is nothing
on it other than temporary scratch files and that BOOTSECT.BAK file. Check
for hidden and system files.

ss.
 
Indeed, but currently that is the active volume and until it is changed and
the 'nix bootloader used (I would hazard a guess that bootsect.bak was the
result of a repair op), he won't be able to change the drive letter.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com
 
Rick Rogers said:
Indeed, but currently that is the active volume and until it is changed
and the 'nix bootloader used (I would hazard a guess that bootsect.bak was
the result of a repair op), he won't be able to change the drive letter.
Click to expand...

With only a BOOTSEC.BAK, there is nothing stopping him from getting rid of
it. It is only *a* system partition, not *the* system partition that is
relevant to his Vista installation. He posted a list of his partitions
elsewhere in this thread. I reckon it can simply be reformatted. I cannot
see any reason that would stop him from doing that. If there is, Acronis
DDS will sort it out.

ss.
 
Hi,
Thanks for so many replies so fast.
All hard drives are SATA.
Here is a map of my drives and partitions:

== Disk 0 - 250GB ==
--- 10GB - Unallocated ---
wanted to allocate for Ubuntu swap, but never did.
--- 10GB - D: - Video Scratch ---
System, Active, Primary Partition
Used for scratch files of video editing progs
--- 230GB - F: - Documents ---
Primary Partition
My Vista Documents partition

== Disk 1 - 250GB ==
--- 70GB - C: - Vista ---
Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition
Vista and program installation partition
--- 180GB - V: - Video ---
Primary Partition
Used as video editing space

== Disk 2 - 250GB ==
--- 10GB - E: - Vista Swap ---
Primary Partition
Was used for windows page file up until I reinstalled Vista. Didn't
get
to move it there yet, but I intend to.
--- 50GB - Ubuntu ---
Primary Partition
Ubuntu installation
--- 190GB - H: P2P ---
Primary Partition
Used for downloaded and P2P files


Basicly what I want is to change drive F: (Documents) to D: which is
currently taken by the Video Scratch partition. This is important for me as
to allow Photoshop Elements (PE) recognize my pictures which reside in the
documents partition. PE thinks it should be on D: ...
Click to expand...

Run registry editor.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices.
Rename \DosDevices\D: to \DosDevices\X:.
Rename \DosDevices\F: to \DosDevices\D:.
Rename \DosDevices\X: to \DosDevices\F:.
Reboot.
 
Andy - it worked. Such a simple solution !
Synapse - didn't try your solution. May have worked as well, I don't know :)
Thanks guys.
 
Andy - it worked. Such a simple solution !
Synapse - didn't try your solution. May have worked as well, I don't know :)
Thanks guys.
Click to expand...

It simply points to how poorly Vista is implemented. There shouldn't
be a need to fiddle in the Registry to change a drive letter. While
you didn't have to, (there are several methods to do what you wanted)
somebody suggesting a Registry change as a way again points to how
lacking, poorly defined and useless everyday controls often are in
Vista. It is like needing to pop the hood on your car and cross
circuit the wiring every time you want to start the car.

The reality is many things are screwed up in Vista. Clicking on the
START Orb to find your way to exit. Explorer often forgetting it's
settings. UAC nagging over nothing. All these things point to sloppy
design and even worse testing. Microsoft simply didn't realize how
clumsy Vista can be. The more inexperienced you are the more annoying
Vista becomes.

You apparently still have 10 GB of unallocated space on one of your
drives. Again due to sheer stupidity, Vista likely won't let you
reclaim it and you'll probably need to buy some third party utility to
make it useable. That Windows has ALWAYS been very weak in controlling
it's own file system structure is grim testimony to how lax and lazy
Microsoft software engineers really are.

Windows still doesn't come with decent backup, nor a decent
defragmenter or it sure doesn't make it easy to do simple things like
rename drive letters (that stick) or allocate drive space or expand or
shrink partitions. The deeper you look at Windows the more blunders
you see in how it was designed. Don't even get me started on all the
things wrong with firewire or USB control that often results in
Windows "forgetting" some device is in fact connected and you need to
unplug, then replug before dumb old Windows again activates the
device. Microsoft software engineers more closely resemble the
Keystone Cops. They keep making DUMB mistakes.
 
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