Windows reinstall partition woes

Tom|Nbk · 11 Mar 2007 at 20:57

Basically for some reason on reinstall Windows has named one of my other drives to C: and my main drive with Windows on as E:, now i can't change the drive letters because the C: drive is the system drive :confused:

and the E: drive the boot drive, what can i do without formatting the C: labeled drive to change my E: (Windows drive) back to drive letter C:. Iv'e had a problem like this before with XP setup but forgot how to sort it.

jaric · 11 Mar 2007 at 23:14

Try this

How to restore the system/boot drive letter in Windows

Tom|Nbk · 11 Mar 2007 at 23:22

thanks will try this, will i have any problems rebooting into xp?

kip02 · 12 Mar 2007 at 00:38

Tom|Nbk said:
thanks will try this, will i have any problems rebooting into xp?

I tried this last week with mine because i was having the same problem of my windows partition being on D. I ended up formatting as it got just past the windows boot screen then froze everytime.

Plus if it will work won't programs that have been installed say to the d:\program files folder have problems?

Tom|Nbk · 12 Mar 2007 at 00:49

kip02 said:
I tried this last week with mine because i was having the same problem of my windows partition being on D. I ended up formatting as it got just past the windows boot screen then froze everytime.

Plus if it will work won't programs that have been installed say to the d:\program files folder have problems?

Yea theoretically it would, so after you did this when you went to reinstall were the drive names you had changed to corrected on the setup list installation drive list?

jaric · 12 Mar 2007 at 01:00

I used this to swap drive letters around a while ago and it worked OK, but I can't remember if it was exactly the same situation as yours.

If the drive letters have changed then any existing shortcuts would have to be changed , especially things like startup apps & services.

It might be worth a try anyway as it looks like the only other option is to re-install.

kip02 · 12 Mar 2007 at 01:34

Tom|Nbk said:
Yea theoretically it would, so after you did this when you went to reinstall were the drive names you had changed to corrected on the setup list installation drive list?

Yeah so when i reinstalled it had it the correct way round. Or even if you just change the present C to say H or something using the method in the link posted then reinstall the new drive\partition should install to C becuase you are just freeing up the drive letter.

Tom|Nbk · 12 Mar 2007 at 15:26

kip02 said:
Yeah so when i reinstalled it had it the correct way round. Or even if you just change the present C to say H or something using the method in the link posted then reinstall the new drive\partition should install to C becuase you are just freeing up the drive letter.

Thanks mate, your a star hopefully this should work.

MikeWild74 · 12 Mar 2007 at 15:58

Worked for me

Tom|Nbk · 12 Mar 2007 at 16:31

Nah for some reason it dosnt want to work for me, i free'd up the current C: and still it defaults my partition i need to install windows to as E: and another full parition as C:, the only way i can see sorting it is by deleting the partition on setup but this isn't convinient as that paritions full of important data, Help someone? :eek:

bledd · 12 Mar 2007 at 16:44

one thing i always do (after learning the hard way like you) is unplug all other hard drives when installing windows

Tom|Nbk · 12 Mar 2007 at 17:05

FFS, guess ill have to live with the HDD being E:

even unplugging the drives most likely won't work. God ****ing Windows if anyone has any other ideas please let me know.

marc2003 · 12 Mar 2007 at 17:19

Tom|Nbk said:
even unplugging the drives most likely won't work.

why do you say that? if you only have 1 partition on each drive then it will most definitely work.

bledd · 12 Mar 2007 at 17:24

marc2003 said:
why do you say that? if you only have 1 partition on each drive then it will most definitely work.

yeah

Tom|Nbk · 12 Mar 2007 at 17:29

marc2003 said:
why do you say that? if you only have 1 partition on each drive then it will most definitely work.

I have three partitions on each drive, and the wrong labeleled partition is on the same drive as the E:

marc2003 · 12 Mar 2007 at 17:59

Tom|Nbk said:
I have three partitions on each drive, and the wrong labeleled partition is on the same drive as the E:

post a screendump of your setup in disk management. might give us a little clue as to how to fix this.

Tom|Nbk · 12 Mar 2007 at 18:02

Cheers

marc2003 · 12 Mar 2007 at 18:17

what a mess. i'd get all the data you want to keep onto to one drive. shutdown, disconnect the drive with the data on. now run windows setup and delete all the partitions on the other drive. create a new 70gb-ish partition for windows and of course that will be c:\ - leave the rest of the disk unallocated for now. finish windows setup first and then use disk management to partition/format the rest of the drive. now connect the other drive and you can juggle the drive letters to your hearts content.

Tom|Nbk · 12 Mar 2007 at 18:28

I've noticed for some reason some of my partitions are logical drives, could the fact E: is a logical drive be causing any problems? .

marc2003 · 12 Mar 2007 at 18:34

yup. that's what i meant by the mess..... there's no need for them at all. as xp can see 4 primary partitions per drive, they serve no purpose whatsoever. but i think xp setup might be the cuplrit here. if you create more than one partition during setup, it creates logical drives - that's why i mentioned to create just one and then use disk managment to do the rest later.