Unclear about assignment of drive letters to partitions

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rene
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Rene

Can someone help me understand this?

I have a drive with a Primary Partition, and one extended partition - itself
containing 2 logical partitions.

So: a total of 3 partitions

Now I want to install XP. I want the Primary to be assigned drive letter C:
as usual.

I would like the 2 extended partitions to have drive letters U, and V.

When do I make this assignment? When I create the partitions (Part.Magic)?

I'm using a simple 'untattended.txt' answer file. Can I make the drive
letter assignments in there?

Thanx for helping me understand!

René
 
Hope the following helps?

Use the unattend answer file to install Win XP on Drive C: if you want to

when you installed win XP do the following

Click Start
Right Click My Computer
Click Manage
Click Disk Management
Click Action
nav to all tasks
Click change drive letter or path

From there you will be able to change the drive letter

Good luck.
 
The primary will be C: provided it's the Active partition. (Check this with
DOS FDISK, should have an A before it. )

The logic is that primary partitions come first in the letter-order, even if
they're on successive disks in the IDE chain. Then come the extended
partitions.

HST, you can change the letter of any disk that's not a boot or system disk,
in Adminstrative Tools. So don't worry too much about the extended
partitions, just make sure the boot/system partition is C:
 
Rene said:
Can someone help me understand this?

I have a drive with a Primary Partition, and one extended partition - itself
containing 2 logical partitions.

So: a total of 3 partitions

Now I want to install XP. I want the Primary to be assigned drive letter C:
as usual.

I would like the 2 extended partitions to have drive letters U, and V.

When do I make this assignment? When I create the partitions (Part.Magic)?
Click to expand...

The question is, which drive letter do you want to install windows to
?

User assigninment of drive letters to partitions cannot be made in
DOS; DOS/the BIOS is inflexible. Both DOS and the initial part of
windows setup (the text mode part, looks like DOS), are inflexible.
BUT...

- You can change drive letters when already in windows, but not the
boot partition (usually C:), nor the partition in which windows is
installed (logically).

- For DOS, and text-mode setup of windows, you can manipulate the
drive letters by first creating some extra partitions, or deleting (or
hiding) partitions, thereby shifting drive letters in those modes.
(If, for example, you want windows to install into a specific physical
partition other than C:, and want that partition to have a certain
drive letter other than C:). Use Partition Magic (DOS) to create/hide
those temporary partitions. (A hidden partition does not use up a
drive letter). The created temp partitions can be very small, not to
waste time formatting. Don't know how many drive letters an extended
parition can hold, though. Perhaps you can reach the letter U with
just one extended partition (?).

- Windows, (in text mode setup too ?), gives priority to Removable
drives when assigning drive letters, over some extended partitions and
even second and third primary partitions. It considers a photo card
reader, flash disk, etc.. removable drive, and will assign it a letter
before the extended partitions. So you could use that to shift letters
during install, too. Read how it assigns letters to Basic Disks here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/234048/#E0VB0ACAAA

- Finally, you can install extra hard disks to shift the drive letters
also.

- There's even a trick you can use to decrease the drive letter of an
extended partition in DOS, by 1. Delete any primary partitions on the
same disk which precede the extended partition. (A disk does not
require to have a primary partition, it can live very well with just
an extended partition). Of course the disk you boot from (determined
in the BIOS) MUST have a primary partition (and an Active one).

HTH

Habib
 
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