Drive letter ?

BChat

Chad,

The problem seems to be, as best as I can describe it, that I took an image
of Drive 4, "I" and put it onto drive 2 "D".
So all the shortcuts had "I" in their path selection, even though they were
on "D" - with the one exception being Windows Explore, it showed D.
As I stated elsewhere, I'm not sure one, or maybe it is just me, can move an
image from one drive to another and expect it to work.
FWIW, these are Acronis TI Home 2009 images and separate HDs.

I have been fooling around with this nonsense ever since I first added Vista
beta to my 2nd HD. Just learning the concept of dual booting took some time,
I believe you helped me a great deal back in the summer of "Vista Beta", a
few years ago.

I'd probably be OK if I could adapt to the "If it works, don't fix it"
theory.
I tend to think there is always at least one more tweak to be had.....:-)

Thanks for the reply,

BChat

"Chad Harris" <> wrote in message
news:.gbl...
1) As Earl said, (and I apologize for not paying attention that was what
you had wanted to do and it was your system drive), you can't change dirve
letter of the system drive.
2) You can change other drive letters via diskmgmt.msc in the run box, and
that I have not found to be problematic in the least.
3) If you install Vista on a dual boot from another OS on another partition,
your drive letters will be the next sequential drive for the Vista boot.
But if you restart and install Vista on a dual boot the Bios will assign the
drive letters and the System Drive will be C:\ on the subsequently installed
OS.
4) You can access the desktop of any of the OS's on a dual or multiboot
system by using the appropriate file path, saving time and avoiding that
when you boot to the other OS your System Restore points won't be retained.

Good luck,

CH


"BChat" <> wrote in message
news:%.gbl...
> CH,
>
> Thanks for your reply - my experience has been less than good ;-)
> I formatted drive 2 - D
> I placed an image of Drive 4 I onto it.
> I checked all the shortcuts and all still showed I in their properties
> except for Windows Explore, that switched to D.
> All the programs opened - but apparently from I, because when I formatted
> I
> nothing worked.
> I decided this idea was not going well,
> put the drive 4 I image back where it belonged and now have
> Vista Ultimate 64 on drive 1, C, as original and
> Windows 7 32 bit (I posted Vista 32 in OP - my bad) on drive 4 I, as
> original
> - all seems OK.
>
> I suppose IF I used the I image and changed Drive 2, D, to I
> - all would be well EXCEPT then I'd have:
> Drive 1 C
> Drive 2 I
> Drive 3 G
> Drive 4 D
>
> My compulsive, obsessive, neurotic, psychotic, and slightly flaky
> personality
> would never allow that to exist for more than 1.7638 seconds.
>
> I'm not sure I've ever placed an image from one drive to another and had
> it
> work.
> Lord knows I have tired enough times.
>
> Thanks again for your reply.
> Good news is I have an empty D drive waiting for the public beta of
> Windows
> 7.
>
> BChat
>
>
>
> "CH" <> wrote in message
> news:.gbl...
> Hi BChat--
>
> With all respect due to everyone:
>
> I recently did this and did not have to install one program. I haven't
> bothered to check reg values or subkeys in hives because I haven't had the
> need. This was on a dual boot box where I have two HDs installed, running
> Vista and one partition where I'm running Windows 7.
>
> I have noticed that if you change the drive letter, the programs will
> always
> come up flawlessly via their shortcuts be they on the Vista desktop, or
> Start Menu or All Programs Menu.
>
> That would cause me to give the answer to your question a Resounding
> "Yes."
> I'm spinning them up as I type this and they are all springing up as they
> have been for months.
>
> However, in a different situation, but I think worth pointing out, if you
> have programs on an external Hard Drive, and that external HD corrupts,
> you
> will find that programs will certainly no longer work, and you'll of
> course
> get an error message that says the drive cannot be located.
>
> I would add for what it's worth, that early on, I got the bright idea that
> I
> would try to copy programs from one drive to another to take a shortcut in
> installing them. That, as thousands would be quick to point out, will not
> work for a number of large programs like Office. I have even been able to
> repair Office briefly using the repair modality that came with the Office
> version, but that repair only held up transiently. A number of programs
> did copy correctly, but I don't recommend doing this, don't try it anymore
> (of course the registry entries will be altered in this situation for many
> programs, and it was
> obviously a foolish early mistake and far from "best practices." But
> that's
> not your situation; I just point it out.
>
> On the other hand, although you can use Foldershare and Live Mesh to
> communicate between different boxes in your environment at home, and Mesh
> is
> still a work in progress for a while as to its communication with PDAs and
> Iphones/Itouches (foldershare works on them though), I often transfer
> programs from my laptop to my desktop by copying them to a thumb drive on
> my
> laptop or desktop, and then copying them to the desktop or wherever on
> other
> boxes, and that works just fine.
>
> I recommend you go on and change the drive letter. Set a restore point
> if
> you like, but I've done it on two boxes and I had to do nothing to make
> the
> programs respond and open up perfectly.
>
> Good luck,
>
> CH
>
> "BChat" <> wrote in message
> news:.gbl...
>> If I use Disk Management to change the drive letter of a disk from say
>> "I"
>> to "D", will all the program shortcuts on the drive change also, so
>> essentially drive "I" is now drive "D"
>>
>> The reason I am asking:
>>
>> I have Vista HP 32 on my 4th HD - "I"
>> Using Acronis True Image, I want to put an image of "I" onto my 2nd HD
>> "D",
>> then format "I" for storage.
>> Will all the references to "I" in the image change to "D" when placed on
>> the
>> 2nd HD?
>> OR
>> Should I just make the 2nd HD "I", format the 4th HD and make it "D"
>>
>> now have
>> C: drive 1 - Ultimate 64 bit
>> D: drive 2 - empty simple volume**
>> G: drive 3 - storage
>> I: drive 4 - Home Premium 32 bit
>>
>> would like to have
>> C: drive 1 - Ultimate 64 bit
>> D: drive 2 - Home Premium 32 bit
>> G: drive 3 - storage
>> I: drive 4 - storage
>>
>> E: and F: are DVD drives
>> H: is the card reader in printer
>>
>> **do I need to make this an active volume before I pit an image on it?
>> If so, how? I had to do it a while ago, I forgot.
>>
>>
>> Any suggestions on how to best accomplish this appreciated.
>>
>> Thanks
>> BChat
>>
>> OK, I've used up my November questions allotment :-)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

Earle Horton

Most modern motherboards allow BIOS setup to specify which drive is the boot
drive. This is much handier than what you are trying to do. Go into BIOS
setup, make drive 1 the boot drive, install an operating system. Go into
BIOS setup, make drive 2 the boot drive, install an operating system.
Repeat until you have all the operating systems you want. Use BIOS setup to
switch between them. If you do that then copying operating systems between
drives is a no brainer, because any place you boot from is "C". And you
don't have to learn how XP, Vista or Linux addresses the dual booting issue.

Earle

"BChat" <> wrote in message
news:%.gbl...
> Chad,
>
> The problem seems to be, as best as I can describe it, that I took an
> image
> of Drive 4, "I" and put it onto drive 2 "D".
> So all the shortcuts had "I" in their path selection, even though they
> were
> on "D" - with the one exception being Windows Explore, it showed D.
> As I stated elsewhere, I'm not sure one, or maybe it is just me, can move
> an
> image from one drive to another and expect it to work.
> FWIW, these are Acronis TI Home 2009 images and separate HDs.
>
> I have been fooling around with this nonsense ever since I first added
> Vista
> beta to my 2nd HD. Just learning the concept of dual booting took some
> time,
> I believe you helped me a great deal back in the summer of "Vista Beta", a
> few years ago.
>
> I'd probably be OK if I could adapt to the "If it works, don't fix it"
> theory.
> I tend to think there is always at least one more tweak to be had.....:-)
>
> Thanks for the reply,
>
> BChat
>
> "Chad Harris" <> wrote in message
> news:.gbl...
> 1) As Earl said, (and I apologize for not paying attention that was what
> you had wanted to do and it was your system drive), you can't change
> dirve
> letter of the system drive.
> 2) You can change other drive letters via diskmgmt.msc in the run box, and
> that I have not found to be problematic in the least.
> 3) If you install Vista on a dual boot from another OS on another
> partition,
> your drive letters will be the next sequential drive for the Vista boot.
> But if you restart and install Vista on a dual boot the Bios will assign
> the
> drive letters and the System Drive will be C:\ on the subsequently
> installed
> OS.
> 4) You can access the desktop of any of the OS's on a dual or multiboot
> system by using the appropriate file path, saving time and avoiding that
> when you boot to the other OS your System Restore points won't be
> retained.
>
> Good luck,
>
> CH
>
>
> "BChat" <> wrote in message
> news:%.gbl...
>> CH,
>>
>> Thanks for your reply - my experience has been less than good ;-)
>> I formatted drive 2 - D
>> I placed an image of Drive 4 I onto it.
>> I checked all the shortcuts and all still showed I in their properties
>> except for Windows Explore, that switched to D.
>> All the programs opened - but apparently from I, because when I formatted
>> I
>> nothing worked.
>> I decided this idea was not going well,
>> put the drive 4 I image back where it belonged and now have
>> Vista Ultimate 64 on drive 1, C, as original and
>> Windows 7 32 bit (I posted Vista 32 in OP - my bad) on drive 4 I, as
>> original
>> - all seems OK.
>>
>> I suppose IF I used the I image and changed Drive 2, D, to I
>> - all would be well EXCEPT then I'd have:
>> Drive 1 C
>> Drive 2 I
>> Drive 3 G
>> Drive 4 D
>>
>> My compulsive, obsessive, neurotic, psychotic, and slightly flaky
>> personality
>> would never allow that to exist for more than 1.7638 seconds.
>>
>> I'm not sure I've ever placed an image from one drive to another and had
>> it
>> work.
>> Lord knows I have tired enough times.
>>
>> Thanks again for your reply.
>> Good news is I have an empty D drive waiting for the public beta of
>> Windows
>> 7.
>>
>> BChat
>>
>>
>>
>> "CH" <> wrote in message
>> news:.gbl...
>> Hi BChat--
>>
>> With all respect due to everyone:
>>
>> I recently did this and did not have to install one program. I haven't
>> bothered to check reg values or subkeys in hives because I haven't had
>> the
>> need. This was on a dual boot box where I have two HDs installed,
>> running
>> Vista and one partition where I'm running Windows 7.
>>
>> I have noticed that if you change the drive letter, the programs will
>> always
>> come up flawlessly via their shortcuts be they on the Vista desktop, or
>> Start Menu or All Programs Menu.
>>
>> That would cause me to give the answer to your question a Resounding
>> "Yes."
>> I'm spinning them up as I type this and they are all springing up as they
>> have been for months.
>>
>> However, in a different situation, but I think worth pointing out, if you
>> have programs on an external Hard Drive, and that external HD corrupts,
>> you
>> will find that programs will certainly no longer work, and you'll of
>> course
>> get an error message that says the drive cannot be located.
>>
>> I would add for what it's worth, that early on, I got the bright idea
>> that
>> I
>> would try to copy programs from one drive to another to take a shortcut
>> in
>> installing them. That, as thousands would be quick to point out, will
>> not
>> work for a number of large programs like Office. I have even been able
>> to
>> repair Office briefly using the repair modality that came with the Office
>> version, but that repair only held up transiently. A number of programs
>> did copy correctly, but I don't recommend doing this, don't try it
>> anymore
>> (of course the registry entries will be altered in this situation for
>> many
>> programs, and it was
>> obviously a foolish early mistake and far from "best practices." But
>> that's
>> not your situation; I just point it out.
>>
>> On the other hand, although you can use Foldershare and Live Mesh to
>> communicate between different boxes in your environment at home, and Mesh
>> is
>> still a work in progress for a while as to its communication with PDAs
>> and
>> Iphones/Itouches (foldershare works on them though), I often transfer
>> programs from my laptop to my desktop by copying them to a thumb drive on
>> my
>> laptop or desktop, and then copying them to the desktop or wherever on
>> other
>> boxes, and that works just fine.
>>
>> I recommend you go on and change the drive letter. Set a restore point
>> if
>> you like, but I've done it on two boxes and I had to do nothing to make
>> the
>> programs respond and open up perfectly.
>>
>> Good luck,
>>
>> CH
>>
>> "BChat" <> wrote in message
>> news:.gbl...
>>> If I use Disk Management to change the drive letter of a disk from say
>>> "I"
>>> to "D", will all the program shortcuts on the drive change also, so
>>> essentially drive "I" is now drive "D"
>>>
>>> The reason I am asking:
>>>
>>> I have Vista HP 32 on my 4th HD - "I"
>>> Using Acronis True Image, I want to put an image of "I" onto my 2nd HD
>>> "D",
>>> then format "I" for storage.
>>> Will all the references to "I" in the image change to "D" when placed on
>>> the
>>> 2nd HD?
>>> OR
>>> Should I just make the 2nd HD "I", format the 4th HD and make it "D"
>>>
>>> now have
>>> C: drive 1 - Ultimate 64 bit
>>> D: drive 2 - empty simple volume**
>>> G: drive 3 - storage
>>> I: drive 4 - Home Premium 32 bit
>>>
>>> would like to have
>>> C: drive 1 - Ultimate 64 bit
>>> D: drive 2 - Home Premium 32 bit
>>> G: drive 3 - storage
>>> I: drive 4 - storage
>>>
>>> E: and F: are DVD drives
>>> H: is the card reader in printer
>>>
>>> **do I need to make this an active volume before I pit an image on it?
>>> If so, how? I had to do it a while ago, I forgot.
>>>
>>>
>>> Any suggestions on how to best accomplish this appreciated.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>> BChat
>>>
>>> OK, I've used up my November questions allotment :-)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>