Changing system drive letter?

Seraphim Knight

Hi all!

So, I've had this thing on my computer that's been nagging me for the past few months... When I installed XP on my then-new computer, the system drive letter had been assigned as 'E:\', for some obscure reason. I didn't notice right away and set up everything I needed. Since I didn't want to redo the installation of XP and of the 30-some softwares that I installed afterwards, I decided to keep it at that.

I've tried a few times since then to change the drive letter to C, but I haven't been able to since windows really doesn't want you to change paths on system files. I noticed later that C was a drive letter assigned to one of my USB ports, but that's not really important since I now how to change that and make it an available letter again.

What I'm asking is, can I change the system drive letter without having to reinstall, and if yes then how?

Thanks. =)

Seraphim Knight

The thing is, my system drive letter was E at the install, but I didn't tell it to be that. Does that mean I can't change it wasn't changed after installation?

Atanas

Hello there,

For the most part, this is not recommended, especially if the drive letter is the same as when Windows was installed. The only time that you may want to do this is when the drive letters get changed without any user intervention. This may happen when you break a mirror volume or there is a drive configuration change. This should be a rare occurrence and you should change the drive letters back to match the initial installation.
To change or swap drive letters on volumes that cannot otherwise be changed using the Disk Management snap-in, use the following steps:
Note: In these steps, drive D refers to the (wrong) drive letter assigned to a volume, and drive C refers to the (new) drive letter you want to change to, or to assign to the volume.

1. Make a full system backup of the computer and system state.
2. Log on as an Administrator.
3. Start Regedit.exe.
4. Go to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

1. Click MountedDevices.
2. On the Security menu, click Permissions.
3. Check to make sure Administrators have full control. Change this back when you are finished with these steps.
4. Go to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

1. Find the drive letter you want to change to (new). Look for "\DosDevices\C:".
2. Right-click \DosDevices\C:, and then click Rename.
3. Rename it to an unused drive letter "\DosDevices\Z:". (This will free up drive letter C: to be used later.)
4. Find the drive letter you want changed. Look for "\DosDevices\D:".
5. Right-click \DosDevices\D:, and then click Rename.
6. Rename it to the appropriate (new) drive letter "\DosDevices\C:".
7. Click the value for \DosDevices\Z:, click Rename, and then name it back to "\DosDevices\D:".
8. Quit Regedit, and then start Regedt32 (not required in Windows XP).
9. Change the permissions back to the previous setting for Administrators (this should probably be Read Only).
10. Restart the computer.

Hope this help!

Regards Atanas

Atanas

Sorry, I didn't realize that the drive letter was created during the installation!
I know that there are tools like partition magic which can do this!

Taka a look at this document!

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223769

Strider

This is most likely because of a messed up partition structure. I recommend going with the letter E: at the moment and after a few months when another reinstall is needed, do it in the correct way.

If possible back up all data and delete all partitions, then create all one by one using partition magic boot cd ( or any other partition tools).

If it's not possible use the move option to bring the boot partition to the very beginning of the partition structure.

A good example here:

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Seraphim Knight

I can't really back up everything since most of my 2 other drives are too full, but I'll probably get one after the holidays, so I'll try a reinstall then.

Thank you both, Atanas and Strider. =)