Drive letter was C: now F:

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ned
  • Start date Start date
N

Ned

I had to install a new IDE hard drive on my Dell 4300. The old drive
was c: - the new one appears as F:
I am sure that both didks have "cable select" jumper set. Any reason
why this would happen?
TIA, Ned
 
Yes , I took out the old drive, put in the new one in the same slot. I
still ony have a single hard disk. XP was reinstalled on the new disk
from mu original CD. It is not a big deal - just having an F:\ system
disk is unusual to me, I was wondering why this happened.
 
Then I assume that your computer has a build in card reader.
For a strange reason the XP setup gives the low drive letters
to the reader's slots even there is no media present while the
setup.

The best solution is to reinstall XP while the card reader
is not present. You can reach this by deactivating USB in
the BIOS setup. If there is no such option then you have
to open the computer and disconnect it from the mainboard...

But you can try to change the letter of the existing Windows
too. Open the registry editor, go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

Here you find items like \DosDevices\C:, \DosDevices\F:.

Just change C to F and F to C. Now get an Registy Search
and Replace tool like this:
http://www.articulate-pr.com/RegSearch/REGSRCH.HTM

The replace in the registry
F:\Windows to C:\Windows
F:\Program to C:\Program
F:\Doc to C:\Doc
(or whatever these items are named in your language)

Replacing all F:\ to C:\ might do to much - never tried it.
Then reboot and hope for the best :-)


Greeting from Germany

Uwe
 
You're welcome, the registry change won't fix a "bad" install, it only
recovers from an inadvertent letter change.
 
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