How do I change drive letter I:\ to C:\ ?

wsh · 31 Aug 2006 at 22:29

I've bought a new HDD and have transfered C:\ to it using the Seagate tools. Now I want I:\ to become C:\ ,my boot drive. Administrative tools won't allow it. How do I go about changing the drive letter?

(I have the new HDD running via a Serial ATA PCI controller card)

Craig321 · 31 Aug 2006 at 22:32

Off the top of my head, I'd do this:

Take out the C: drive, install Windows on the I: drive which will now be the C: drive, put the other drive back in and transfer the data to it.

wsh · 31 Aug 2006 at 22:34

I dont want to do a fresh windows install though. (This installation has been good since winter 2001!) The data on I:\ is exactly the same as C:\

ByteJuggler · 1 Sep 2006 at 01:11

Just swap the drives around and see what happens... If the Seagate Tools did an image copy, then even though the new drive currently shows up as I:, it should show up as C: when swapped around and booted from.

Craig321 · 1 Sep 2006 at 01:13

wsh said:
I dont want to do a fresh windows install though. (This installation has been good since winter 2001!) The data on I:\ is exactly the same as C:\

Hmm, yeah, as said above swap them round then set the correct one to boot and as master in the BIOS.

wsh · 1 Sep 2006 at 02:27

I took out the cable and power to c:\ and told the BIOS of my ancient Abit KR7A-133 to boot from raid133 (although the drive is actually SATA 150 connected to a RAID PCI card) and the windows black screen came up with boot options saying there was a registry error. I select boot normally and the windows 98 boot screen appears and doesn't go! Not seen that in years. WTF!

deadeyedic30 · 1 Sep 2006 at 15:07

Is the I drive a Logical partition or Primary partition ?

wsh · 2 Sep 2006 at 20:45

Just to let everyone know, I had success with Acronis True Image.

oldbag · 2 Sep 2006 at 20:48

I think you can registry hack it too, but I suspect you'd have to do something with boot.ini too.