Boot drive is not C drive

[Jeff]

I recently purchased a computer and had my old drive installed as a second
drive. For some reason, the techie at the shop assigned "G" to the new
drive (the boot drive), and "H" to the old drive. I have tried to decipher
their reasoning, but the language gap is insurmountable.

I successfully renamed, using Disk Management, "H" to "D". But I don't
think it is wise to rename the boot drive, "G", to "C".

I believe I am going to have to reinstall XP home edition on a reformatted
drive named "C", but how would I properly do that?

I have read every article on Microsoft's site relating to renaming drives,
but I can't figure out how to 1. rename the boot drive to "C", 2. reformat
it, and 3. reinstall XP.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks. Jeff.

[Jeff]

I found at least one program that defaults to C when installing - it
wouldn't install.

I was also advised that possibly the reason I can't get file sharing going
with another XP comp is because of the misnamed drive. I had file sharing
working with my previous machine, which was 98SE.

So, baast, when I insert the XP (Home Edition) install disk, will it ask if
I want to format the drive I want to install to? If so, will not the
choices be D or G? Will I be able to rename drive G to C at that point?

Thanks.

ps I used disk management to rename H to D.
> wrote in message
...
> you can rename drives under disk management, which is
> under administrator's tools in the control panel.
> (assuming you have XP pro), other than that, just shut
> down and insert the installation disk, when you set up
> the partitions and reformat it should rename the
> drive "C" on it's own, but the letter of the drive really
> dosn't matter. it is just how XP specifies the path of
> the data, so if you change it, yes it may not find your
> files. Do you really NEED it to be C?
>
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >I recently purchased a computer and had my old drive
> installed as a second
> >drive. For some reason, the techie at the shop
> assigned "G" to the new
> >drive (the boot drive), and "H" to the old drive. I
> have tried to decipher
> >their reasoning, but the language gap is insurmountable.
> >
> >I successfully renamed, using Disk Management, "H"
> to "D". But I don't
> >think it is wise to rename the boot drive, "G", to "C".
> >
> >I believe I am going to have to reinstall XP home
> edition on a reformatted
> >drive named "C", but how would I properly do that?
> >
> >I have read every article on Microsoft's site relating
> to renaming drives,
> >but I can't figure out how to 1. rename the boot drive
> to "C", 2. reformat
> >it, and 3. reinstall XP.
> >
> >Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> >
> >Thanks. Jeff.
> >
> >
> >.
> >

[Alex Nichol]

Jeff wrote:

>I recently purchased a computer and had my old drive installed as a second
>drive. For some reason, the techie at the shop assigned "G" to the new
>drive (the boot drive), and "H" to the old drive. I have tried to decipher
>their reasoning, but the language gap is insurmountable.
>
>I successfully renamed, using Disk Management, "H" to "D". But I don't
>think it is wise to rename the boot drive, "G", to "C".
>
>I believe I am going to have to reinstall XP home edition on a reformatted
>drive named "C", but how would I properly do that?

If the system is installed to some drive letter other than C: there are
so many references around to the other letter that changing it is not
practical. Best is simply to live with the letter - there is nothing
sacrosanct about C:

Successfully reinstalling would involve disConnecting that other drive,
so it did not get itself pushing in again, booting the XP CD, going into
setup, taking New install, and when it asks where hitting ESC to delete
the old partition, then make a new 'RAW' one and carry on. Easier to
live with it


--
Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows - File Systems)
Bournemouth, U.K.