Drive letters mixed up

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sheldon
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Sheldon

I just installed a second drive in a computer, and that second drive was
originally the primary drive from another computer. Both drives have
approx. 4 partitions each, and when Windows picked them up it found the
primary partition in the original drive as C:, but made the primary
partition of physical drive 2 D:, and all the subsequent partitions on the
"second" drive E:, F:, and G:, followed by the partitions on drive 1.
Anyway, I think you get the idea.

As you can guess, this is causing problems when both shortcuts and software
programs try to find things. So, how do I easily swap the drive letters
around?

Thanks.

Sheldon
(e-mail address removed)
 
Sheldon said:
I just installed a second drive in a computer, and that second drive was
originally the primary drive from another computer. Both drives have
approx. 4 partitions each, and when Windows picked them up it found the
primary partition in the original drive as C:, but made the primary
partition of physical drive 2 D:, and all the subsequent partitions on the
"second" drive E:, F:, and G:, followed by the partitions on drive 1.
Anyway, I think you get the idea.

As you can guess, this is causing problems when both shortcuts and software
programs try to find things. So, how do I easily swap the drive letters
around?
Click to expand...

You don't state which operating system.

For WinXP, try this:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307844
 
This is the way the drives are ordered, and in 98 you cannot change them
directly. The primary partitions are given the drive letters first. You
must change the new drive to not be a primary drive.

Marc Reinig
System Solutions
 
Sheldon said:
Sorry. It's Win 98.
Click to expand...

Bummer, dude. Win98 doesn't let you change the drive letters on fixed or
floppy drives. ZIPs and CDs - no problem.

That the logicals on #2 got lettered before the logicals on #1 is a bit of a
mystery. Remembering back to the old DOS days (daze?), the main partition of
each disk is lettered first starting with the first physical drive. Then,
each logical gets lettered. With 2 drives and 4 partitions/logicals on each,
I would expect the first drive to be lettered C, E, F, G and the second
drive to be lettered D, H, I, J.

Invest in a partition manager utility. There are several shareware and
commercial products out there. I won't recommend one only because I haven't
had to use one since the days of vacuum tubes.
 
If you have XP, you can go into Control Panel, Administrative Tools,
Computer Management, Disk Management and change the respective Drive
letters.
 
Thanks for the help everybody. We wound up moving some of the directories
around to solve the problems, but it would have been nice if we could have
just changed the drive letters.

At least you guys kept me from spinning my wheels trying something that
won't work, and that's a big help.

Sheldon
(e-mail address removed)
 
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