How to Change Drive Letter ???

  • Thread starter Thread starter delta.sxxxeleven
  • Start date Start date
D

delta.sxxxeleven

Can someone tell me how to change a hard drive letter from "F" to
"G"...?? I saw it somewhere and cannot relocate it anywhere..Im
using XP...Thanks in Advance



Barry
 
Can someone tell me how to change a hard drive letter from "F" to
"G"...?? I saw it somewhere and cannot relocate it anywhere..Im
using XP...Thanks in Advance
Click to expand...

Click Start, click Run, type diskmgmt.msc, click OK. Right-click on the
drive, and you will see what to do.

--
Jim Eshelman, MS-MVP Windows http://aumha.org/
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Just to add one more thing. AFAIK you can't change the drive letter for the
system drive unless you go through the partition / format / reinstall
procedure for that drive.
 
Papa said:
Just to add one more thing. AFAIK you can't change the drive letter
for the system drive unless you go through the partition / format /
reinstall procedure for that drive.
Click to expand...

Yes, you can. No need to reformat etc. at all in Win XP if all you want is
to change the drive letter.

--
Jim Eshelman, MS-MVP Windows http://aumha.org/
AumHa Forums: http://forum.aumha.org/
The Parasite Fight: http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm
Computer Health: http://aumha.org/a/health.htm
Troubleshooting: http://aumha.org/a/tshoot.htm
 
So if the system drive was originally set to D, for example, the CD-ROM
drive was set to E, and the Zip drive was set to C, then one could remove
the Zip drive temporarily, change the system drive from D to C, and then
re-install the Zip drive as D ??
 
Jim, my earlier post was in regard to changing the drive letter of a SYSTEM
disk for Windows XP. As I understand it, the normal procedure for changing
the drive letter for a non-system Windows XP disk is:

Right-click My Computer, and then click Manage.
Under Computer Management, click Disk Management. In the right pane, you'll
see your drives listed. CD-ROM drives are listed at the bottom of the pane.
Right-click the drive or device you want to change, and then click Change
Drive Letter and Paths.
Click Change, click Assign the following drive letter, click the drive
letter you want to assign, and then click OK.

However, I do not think one will be able to change the system drive letter
in this manner. As is mentioned in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article -
307844,

"Before you modify drive-letter assignments, note the following items:

Changing the drive letter of the system volume or the boot volume is not
inherent to Disk Management.
Many MS-DOS-based and Windows-based programs make references to a specific
drive letter (for example, environment variables). If you modify the drive
letter, these programs may not function correctly."

I believe the steps to take in changing the drive letter for a SYSTEM drive
for Windows XP involves making changes to the registry, and using the Disk
Management tool will not work.

Regards.
 
Papa said:
So if the system drive was originally set to D, for example, the
CD-ROM drive was set to E, and the Zip drive was set to C, then one
could remove the Zip drive temporarily, change the system drive from
D to C, and then re-install the Zip drive as D ??
Click to expand...

Yes. (Although that's a strange example.)

--
Jim Eshelman, MS-MVP Windows http://aumha.org/
AumHa Forums: http://forum.aumha.org/
The Parasite Fight: http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm
Computer Health: http://aumha.org/a/health.htm
Troubleshooting: http://aumha.org/a/tshoot.htm
 
Papa said:
Jim, my earlier post was in regard to changing the drive letter of a
SYSTEM disk for Windows XP. As I understand it, the normal procedure
for changing the drive letter for a non-system Windows XP disk is:
Click to expand...

If you said that, I missed it. You can change the drive letter the same way,
but you then have another problem - the consequences of the change! If the
Registry is expecting everything on C:, and that is suddenly Q:, you're in
trouble.
However, I do not think one will be able to change the system drive
letter in this manner. As is mentioned in Microsoft Knowledge Base
Article - 307844,
Click to expand...

I've never tried it with the OS partition - never had the need - but you can
do it with any other partition. There will still be consequences of the
change, e.g., if you have all your applications installed on F: and you
change F: to J:, the Registry and shortcuts will still be looking for them
on F: which no longer exists. But that's a separate question from whether or
not you can make the change.

The OS partition does have the same option on it for changing the letter.
I believe the steps to take in changing the drive letter for a SYSTEM
drive for Windows XP involves making changes to the registry, and
using the Disk Management tool will not work.
Click to expand...

If by that you mean the OS partition specifically, you are correct that
you'll have problems if you don't make other changes. That's different,
though, from saying the Disk Management tool won't work. It works just fine.
You get exactly what you ask for. Unfortunately!!! <vbg>

--
Jim Eshelman, MS-MVP Windows http://aumha.org/
AumHa Forums: http://forum.aumha.org/
The Parasite Fight: http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm
Computer Health: http://aumha.org/a/health.htm
Troubleshooting: http://aumha.org/a/tshoot.htm
 
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