How to make c: = f: ?

Hi, Zalek.

"Drive" letters can shift like drifting sand. They can be different each
time we reboot, especially into a different Windows installation. Assign
each "drive" (partition, logical drive or volume) a NAME (label), which will
get written to the hard disk - and won't change when you reboot from Win7 to
WinXP or Vista.

Boot into WinXP and run Disk Management: click Start, type "diskmgmt.msc"
and press Enter. You'll have to furnish Administrator credentials.
Maximize the window so that you won't be working through a keyhole. Wait
while the screen populates, showing all your HDDs, partitions, and other
devices that get "drive" letters, such as DVD/CD drives, USB flash drives,
SD card readers, etc. Then study the screen and absorb what it's telling
you. Widen the columns in the Volume Listing at the top, especially the
Status column. Note CAREFULLY which volume has the System and Boot labels.
Read KB314470 for the counterintuitive definitions of those terms:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.../314470/EN-US/

Then look at the Graphical View at the bottom of the screen. Note the
letters assigned and their sequence on Disk 0 (and any other HDDs that are
installed). Right-click on each volume, click Properties, and type a name
for each if it doesn't already have one. Maybe "WinXP x64" or "Data" or
whatever makes sense to you and will identify that volume, no matter what
letter it may have now or in the future.

Note that YOU can easily change any drive letters you want EXCEPT for the
Boot and System volume - which may or may not be the same drive. Letters
for those special volumes are assigned by Setup when Windows is installed
and can't be changed except by running Setup again - that means installing
Windows again.

Then post back with your remaining questions. But there's no need to keep
cross-posting to irrelevant newsgroups. For example, this is NOT a 64-bit
question. Just microsoft.public.windowsxp.general should be sufficient. I
don't follow that newsgroup, since I haven't run WinXP in about 3 years, but
I'm sure there are many readers there who can help with this problem.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

"zalek" wrote in message
...
Here what happened: for various reasons on my PC WinXp was installed
on F: drive, nd c: was USB drive. Now my PC crushed, but I had hard
drive clone. During install repair, WinXP installed itself in correct
place - but now my old F: is called C: and I am getting a lot of error
messages looking for F: drive (my current C: drive). Is it possible to
tell WinXP that C: and F: is the same drive? How?

Thanks,

Zalek

Hi, Zalek.

"Drive" letters can shift like drifting sand. They can be different each
time we reboot, especially into a different Windows installation. Assign
each "drive" (partition, logical drive or volume) a NAME (label), which will
get written to the hard disk - and won't change when you reboot from Win7 to
WinXP or Vista.

Boot into WinXP and run Disk Management: click Start, type "diskmgmt.msc"
and press Enter. You'll have to furnish Administrator credentials.
Maximize the window so that you won't be working through a keyhole. Wait
while the screen populates, showing all your HDDs, partitions, and other
devices that get "drive" letters, such as DVD/CD drives, USB flash drives,
SD card readers, etc. Then study the screen and absorb what it's telling
you. Widen the columns in the Volume Listing at the top, especially the
Status column. Note CAREFULLY which volume has the System and Boot labels.
Read KB314470 for the counterintuitive definitions of those terms:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.../314470/EN-US/

Then look at the Graphical View at the bottom of the screen. Note the
letters assigned and their sequence on Disk 0 (and any other HDDs that are
installed). Right-click on each volume, click Properties, and type a name
for each if it doesn't already have one. Maybe "WinXP x64" or "Data" or
whatever makes sense to you and will identify that volume, no matter what
letter it may have now or in the future.

Note that YOU can easily change any drive letters you want EXCEPT for the
Boot and System volume - which may or may not be the same drive. Letters
for those special volumes are assigned by Setup when Windows is installed
and can't be changed except by running Setup again - that means installing
Windows again.

Then post back with your remaining questions. But there's no need to keep
cross-posting to irrelevant newsgroups. For example, this is NOT a 64-bit
question. Just microsoft.public.windowsxp.general should be sufficient. I
don't follow that newsgroup, since I haven't run WinXP in about 3 years, but
I'm sure there are many readers there who can help with this problem.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

"zalek" wrote in message
...
Here what happened: for various reasons on my PC WinXp was installed
on F: drive, nd c: was USB drive. Now my PC crushed, but I had hard
drive clone. During install repair, WinXP installed itself in correct
place - but now my old F: is called C: and I am getting a lot of error
messages looking for F: drive (my current C: drive). Is it possible to
tell WinXP that C: and F: is the same drive? How?

Thanks,

Zalek

"zalek" wrote in message
...
Here what happened: for various reasons on my PC WinXp was installed
on F: drive, nd c: was USB drive. Now my PC crushed, but I had hard
drive clone. During install repair, WinXP installed itself in correct
place - but now my old F: is called C: and I am getting a lot of error
messages looking for F: drive (my current C: drive). Is it possible to
tell WinXP that C: and F: is the same drive? How?

Thanks,

Zalek

This kind of substitution normally happens when multimedia readers are
detected and assigned drive letters during the drive scan portion of the XP
install.

Unfortunately, there's no simple or practical way to fix this, because there
are probably hardcoded registry and installer references to the OS
installation as being on F. And there's no easy way to change them; there
may be two, or thousands. You *could* pore through the registry looking
for occurrences of "F" and hope that nothing made references outside the
registry, or you could just fix the underlying problem.

The short version, I'm afraid, is that you cloned a flawed install. The
best plan is to create a proper install, re-image, and restore your data.

HTH
-pk

"zalek" wrote in message
...
Here what happened: for various reasons on my PC WinXp was installed
on F: drive, nd c: was USB drive. Now my PC crushed, but I had hard
drive clone. During install repair, WinXP installed itself in correct
place - but now my old F: is called C: and I am getting a lot of error
messages looking for F: drive (my current C: drive). Is it possible to
tell WinXP that C: and F: is the same drive? How?

Thanks,

Zalek

This kind of substitution normally happens when multimedia readers are
detected and assigned drive letters during the drive scan portion of the XP
install.

Unfortunately, there's no simple or practical way to fix this, because there
are probably hardcoded registry and installer references to the OS
installation as being on F. And there's no easy way to change them; there
may be two, or thousands. You *could* pore through the registry looking
for occurrences of "F" and hope that nothing made references outside the
registry, or you could just fix the underlying problem.

The short version, I'm afraid, is that you cloned a flawed install. The
best plan is to create a proper install, re-image, and restore your data.

HTH
-pk

MM so C: is a USB and System is F:
in C: the USB is the BOOT.DOC, AUTOEXEC.BAT they are Hidden Files that
start the PC and there one more File but I do not remember the name of at
this time All Wright by the installer to tell C: BOOT to BOOT F:
SO you will alway have to BOOT with that USB to make your System to work if
you have Delete or Format you USB then you have to reinstall
XP
BUT PUT it on a CD/DVD if you do not have a CD ROM buy one just $35 for a
good one So that your HARD Drive will be C: not the USB


POST Scrip
O BUY A XP CD or DVD



"zalek" wrote in message
...
Here what happened: for various reasons on my PC WinXp was installed
on F: drive, nd c: was USB drive. Now my PC crushed, but I had hard
drive clone. During install repair, WinXP installed itself in correct
place - but now my old F: is called C: and I am getting a lot of error
messages looking for F: drive (my current C: drive). Is it possible to
tell WinXP that C: and F: is the same drive? How?

Thanks,

Zalek

MM so C: is a USB and System is F:
in C: the USB is the BOOT.DOC, AUTOEXEC.BAT they are Hidden Files that
start the PC and there one more File but I do not remember the name of at
this time All Wright by the installer to tell C: BOOT to BOOT F:
SO you will alway have to BOOT with that USB to make your System to work if
you have Delete or Format you USB then you have to reinstall
XP
BUT PUT it on a CD/DVD if you do not have a CD ROM buy one just $35 for a
good one So that your HARD Drive will be C: not the USB


POST Scrip
O BUY A XP CD or DVD



"zalek" wrote in message
...
Here what happened: for various reasons on my PC WinXp was installed
on F: drive, nd c: was USB drive. Now my PC crushed, but I had hard
drive clone. During install repair, WinXP installed itself in correct
place - but now my old F: is called C: and I am getting a lot of error
messages looking for F: drive (my current C: drive). Is it possible to
tell WinXP that C: and F: is the same drive? How?

Thanks,

Zalek

"Twayne" wrote in message
...
In ,
M.I.5¾ typed:
"John Wunderlich" wrote in message
03...
zalek wrote in

m:

Here what happened: for various reasons on my PC WinXp was
installed on F: drive, nd c: was USB drive. Now my PC crushed, but
I had hard drive clone. During install repair, WinXP installed
itself in correct place - but now my old F: is called C: and I am
getting a lot of error messages looking for F: drive (my current
C: drive). Is it possible to tell WinXP that C: and F: is the same
drive? How?

Thanks,

Zalek


Bring up a command window ( Start - Run - "cmd")
Then enter the command:
subst f: c:\



Closing the command window will remove the substitution. Better to
put it in the startup autoexec.bat (wherever that is these days).

autoexec.bat (and config.sys) do not run in XP boots. They are there for
legacy operations but would not be the way to get the system to
permanently see F and C as the same drives. The Subs command is not what
the OP needs here IMO.


Which is why I said, "wherever that is these days".

"Twayne" wrote in message
...
In ,
M.I.5¾ typed:
"John Wunderlich" wrote in message
03...
zalek wrote in

m:

Here what happened: for various reasons on my PC WinXp was
installed on F: drive, nd c: was USB drive. Now my PC crushed, but
I had hard drive clone. During install repair, WinXP installed
itself in correct place - but now my old F: is called C: and I am
getting a lot of error messages looking for F: drive (my current
C: drive). Is it possible to tell WinXP that C: and F: is the same
drive? How?

Thanks,

Zalek


Bring up a command window ( Start - Run - "cmd")
Then enter the command:
subst f: c:\



Closing the command window will remove the substitution. Better to
put it in the startup autoexec.bat (wherever that is these days).

autoexec.bat (and config.sys) do not run in XP boots. They are there for
legacy operations but would not be the way to get the system to
permanently see F and C as the same drives. The Subs command is not what
the OP needs here IMO.


Which is why I said, "wherever that is these days".