Changing the drive letter for the system disk

[Jonny69]

Is there any way of changing the drive letter for the partition that Windows is running from? I want it to be C: but at the moment it is G: because it put some removeable disks before it when it installed Windows.

 

[Xee]

Only way I know how is to remove the removable disks and reformat Would be interested if anyone knows a quicker method

 

[Burnsy2023]

Right click My Computer
Click Manage
Right click on the system volume
Change Letter and drive paths.

Edit: Thats how you'd usually change it, but you can't do it on boot or system volumes.

So, no, I have no Idea.

Burnsy

 

[Memphis]

I don't think it's possible on a system partition, but I would like to be proved wrong.

 

[gavinpoo]

How can I change the System partition drive letter in Windows XP?

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.

Make a full system backup of the computer and system state.

Log on as an Administrator.

Start Regedt32.exe (or Regedit.exe in Windows XP).

Go to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

Click MountedDevices.

On the Security menu, click Permissions.

Check to make sure Administrators have full control. Change this back when you are finished with these steps.

Quit Regedt32.exe, and then start Regedit.exe.

Go to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

Find the drive letter you want to change to (new). Look for "\DosDevices\C:".

Right-click \DosDevices\C:, and then click Rename. In Windows 2000 you must use Regedit instead of Regedt32 to rename this registry key.

Rename it to an unused drive letter "\DosDevices\Z:". (This will free up drive letter C: to be used later.)

Find the drive letter you want changed. Look for "\DosDevices\D:".

Right-click \DosDevices\D:, and then click Rename.

Rename it to the appropriate (new) drive letter "\DosDevices\C:".

Click the value for \DosDevices\Z:, click Rename, and then name it back to "\DosDevices\D:".

Quit Regedit, and then start Regedt32 (not required in Windows XP).

Change the permissions back to the previous setting for Administrators (this should probably be Read Only).

Restart the computer.

Never tried this myself, but looks easier than reformatting.

 

[ns400r]

Unless it goes wrong. You'll end up formatting then.

 

[zetec452]

I'd backup first. Looks like something that could go quite wrong.

 

[MaxPower]

I tried it once. My system didn't like it, it would simply hang during the boot sequence.

 

[FrankJH]

To be honest while the above should work the only way I have found is to reformat after disconnecting the offending devices - I still cant understand how an external usb drive can have higher priorities than any internal hdd, sounds daft to me but it does happen

 

[Dr_Evil]

leave it as G: - not worth the hassle....

 

[Pulseammo]

I've done this once on a fresh install (well it was almost a fresh install, it was a ghost to another drive which meant I had 2 C's). I basically had to swap the two C drives around, the install was the same on both drives though. I booted into the correct one and did some reg jiggery pokery, turned out fine in my instance (because all of the programs that had been ghosted in thought they were on the C drive anyway, and so did the reg).

If you have programs that don't know they are on the C drive you might have issues though. . . .

 

[Jonny69]

I'd backup first. Looks like something that could go quite wrong.

Indeed it goes completely wrong and stops you logging in. Acronis saved my ass

It's a SATA drive so even if I unplug the removeable drives the CD-ROM always comes before it which is annoying to say the least.