C drive - incorrect label

GaryS

Just changed the C drive to a new bigger hdd, and XP has called it N instead of C.

I think that this is because I have another hdd, 2 x dvd drives and a multiple card reader installed, all having individual drive letters.

Am I correct in thinking that if I disconnect all except a dvd drive and reinstall XP, it will correctly label it as C.

I can then re-attach other devices.

aliEnRIK

If you go into the BIOS you need to set the 'new' hard drive as the BOOTABLE hard drive. Then reinstall xp and away you go

totalsolutions

Hi, Right click My Computer/Manage, Under Computer Management select Storage then Disk Management. I the upper right hand window select a drive then right click "Change Drive leter and Paths"
That will do it.
You will have to rearragnge the lettering around to get "D"free. ie rename "d" to "z" . Rename "n" to "d" then put "z" where you want.

Hungerdunger

From my own experience this isn't possible. A couple of years ago I put a new drive in and it was allocated the letter F. It probably won't be a big problem for you, although I had a couple of spreadsheets which caused problems because they were referencing other files which were on the C: drive at work, so they couldn't find them at home as the files were on the F: drive. (If you see what I mean).

However, if you want the drive to be the C: Drive because that's what you are used to, I think you'll need to re-install Windows, and possibly precede this by formatting the disk.

Hungerdunger

totalsolutions wrote: »

Hi, Right click My Computer/Manage, Under Computer Management select Storage then Disk Management. I the upper right hand window select a drive then right click "Change Drive leter and Paths"
That will do it.

Have you actually tried this with the drive containing Windows? Because when I had problems (see my post above) it didn't work, and I was advised at the time that it wasn't possible.

Conor_3

totalsolutions wrote: »

Hi, Right click My Computer/Manage, Under Computer Management select Storage then Disk Management. I the upper right hand window select a drive then right click "Change Drive leter and Paths"
That will do it.

No it won't. You cannot do it on the drive letter the OS is installed to. It completely screws up a whole ton of registry and system file references.

Leave it as it is. It doesn't do any harm and in fact, will fool some of the badly written malware which tries to modify system files and refers to them with C:\path\filename

aliEnRIK

GaryS wrote: »

Just changed the C drive to a new bigger hdd, and XP has called it N instead of C.

I think that this is because I have another hdd, 2 x dvd drives and a multiple card reader installed, all having individual drive letters.

Am I correct in thinking that if I disconnect all except a dvd drive and reinstall XP, it will correctly label it as C.

I can then re-attach other devices.

Why do you want to anyway? Is the drive FASTER than your old one (So will load XP quicker)
If not then id personally leave it as it is or as the other guy said change the label (just NOT 'C')

jonnywatson

Do you need the new hard drive to run the OS? Why not set the HDD as a slave and just use it as pure storage?

If you need to run the OS you will have to set it as master unless its a SATA drive in which case go in to the BIOS and set the new drive as master, the old drive as slave and boot with the XP install disk...install XP and start...what will happen is when windows boots it check for boot partitions on both drives, sees a boot partition on the old drive and give you the option to boot from either drive. New install should be the top option. But from within windows you will be able to access the old drive. Personally, if you are not bothered about hard drive access speed i would just use the new drive as an additional storage drive and don't worry about installing etc...

Jonny

mdbarber

Presumably the original drive has been in some time so the new drive suits 2 functions
1 increase space
2 attempt at system continuity

Use an imaging utility such as norton ghost or try
http://selfimage.excelcia.org/
to transfer all contents, then set boot order in bios to new drive first, after that format the old drive and hey presto

GaryS

As per Conor's post it is not possible to change the drive letter of the OS drive.

It is not a major problem, just a slight glitch.

Not sure why it happened, as it has never done it before on other multi-drive PCs that I have changed the C drive in.

I can format and try again, as I have only just installed the basic XP Home - SP2, no updates or anything else yet.

The "N" drive is the current bootable drive.

Conor_3

GaryS wrote: »

Not sure why it happened, as it has never done it before on other multi-drive PCs that I have changed the C drive in.

Drive letters are assigned in the following order:

First Primary partition on each hard drive, other primary partitions on each hard drive then extended partitions on each drive and finally logical partitions within extended partitions.

So if you've already got a HDD in with a primary partition on that's on the first SATA channel or Channel 0 of IDE0, that gets C: and when you add another hard drive, that'll get assigned D.

As Windows also sees USB storage devices as hard drives, then if they've all got primary partitions on, the drive letter assigned for the second hard drive can get moved further down the list.