How To Change Drive Letters In XP

[vielwahr]

How can I change the drive letters on my hard drives in WindowsXP which have system volume and/or boot volume? Please don't suggest I RTFM, I don't have one and "help" is not helping. Thanks.

 

[JBark]

Edit:
Never mind, didn't see the sys volume stuff

 

[shaihulud]

next time during installation: make sure boot order is set correctly e.g. sata drives and when prompted for installation drive. make sure there is a partition. if not create one reboot and then the order will be set correctly.

e.g.: system with 2 ide and one sata. both ide's have partitions existing (no logical) on them. set bios boot order for sata. this will make it c:. but when loading windows xp installer. the master ide will be c: with the slave ide as d:. placing the sata as e. if you create a partition and then reboot the order will be set sata c:, ide master d:, ide slave e:.

 

[Ice Czar]

I agree with shaihulud its far simpler to use the physical configuration to get your order correct

in a nonSATA board that is typically

-- Primary Master primary partition
-- Primary Slave primary partition
-- Secondary Master primary partition
-- Secondary Slave primary partition
-- Primary Master extended partition with logical drives
-- Primary Slave extended partition with logical drives
-- Secondary Master extended partition with logical drives
-- Secondary Slave extended partition with logical drives
-- Removable media (CD-ROM) or other software driven devices with drive letters
(of course that doesnt address the fact your allowed 4 Primary Partitions per HDD or 3 Primary and 1 extended, and of course if you alter the boot order in the BIOS all the letters will reassign, but thats with a dual boot)

How Windows NT\W2K\XP Assigns, Reserves, and Stores Drive Letters


BASIC Disk - Drive Letter Assignment Rules
The following are the basic disk drive letter assignment rules for Windows 2000:

Scan all fixed hard disks as they are enumerated, assign drive letters starting with any active primary partitions (if there is one), otherwise, scan the first primary partition on each drive.
Assign next available letter starting with C:

Repeat scan for all fixed hard disks and removable (JAZ, MO) disks and assign drive letters to all logical drives in an extended partition, or the removable disk(s) as enumerated. Assign next available letter starting with C:.

Finally, repeat scan for all fixed hard disk drives, and assign drive letters to all remaining primary partitions. Assign next available letter starting with C:.

Floppy drives. Assign letter starting with A:

CD-ROM drives. Assign next available letter starting with D:.

however on occassion it maybe desirable to actually change the drive letters

HOW TO: Change Drive Letter Assignments in Windows XP

or mount a drive to a folder on another HDD\Partition

How do I mount and unmount a volume at an NTFS folder?

 

[vielwahr]

Excellent and very comprehensive advice. Thank you.