How To Change Drive Letter In XP When Dual Boot With 7?
Oct 18, 2009
In 7 everything is all right.7 is c: and the boot partition is hidden.
But in XP the hidden partition is c: and visible.XP is d:,so some programs use default dir can't work.I tried disk management to change xp to c: but didn't succeed.
Anyway to change the drive letters and hide the 100m partition?
My goal is to run a Windows 7/Windows 7 dual boot system with one installation for day to day operations (MAIN) and then second installation strictly for gaming (GAMER).
I have successfully installed Windows 7 twice. During clean install i created 30GB partition (C: ) and put MAIN there. No problems. I loaded that up and from within Disk Management created a second partition on the same physical drive and named it (D: ).
I booted from the Windows 7 install DVD and then installed GAMER to the (D: ) partition. No problems. I am able to boot into each installation (MAIN and GAMER) from the boot manager without any troubles.
When I boot into the MAIN installation, the system path/partition is (C: ) and the os files for the second installation, GAMER, can be seen on (D: ) just fine.
However, when i boot into the GAMER installation, its system path is also (C: ) and the partition for MAIN somehow got renamed to (G: )
I would like it so that when I boot into MAIN (which was installed to C: ), that partition stays named (C: ) and when i boot into GAMER (which was installed to D: ), that partition stays named (D: ). Eventhough both installations see themselves as (C: ) when i boot into them, it does not seem to cause any problems.
So how should I do my second Windows 7 installation to a partition named (D: ) and force it to keep that name when i boot into it?
I'm using multiple hard drives to install both fedora and Windows 7. I've followed this online tutorial exactly: Dual-booting Fedora 14 and Windows 7 on a computer with 2 hard drives
The problem I seem to be facing is on the "Add a new Entry Step". His secondary OS partition has a drive letter assigned to it and I do not. I've gone into computer management and have tried to assign a drive letter to either of my secondary OS's hard drive partitions and it will not let me.
All I need is the boot loader to link to my second hard drive when the second option (OS) is chosen.
I have windows XP pro 32 bit installed in C drive and then installed clean win 7 64bit in drive D. Everything works properly but when I boot from XP, it is in C drive and I see Windows 7 in D drive, when I boot from Windows 7, I see win 7 in C and winXP in D drive. Is it normal or is there any I can do to fix win Xp in C and Windows 7 in D?
I want to change the drive letter of the drive on which Windows 7 is installed.It is currently F:, and I want to change it to K:It is not possible from the Disk Management as I tried.
I originally was running Windows Vista x64 as my sole operating system. When the Windows 7 beta came out, I created a new partition and began dual-booting. I have been using that beta as my primary OS for several months, I think, keeping the other drive and the dual boot capability. I can't remember for sure, since I have blank DVDs but can't find a Windows 7 beta DVD, but I -think- that my method of installing the Windows 7 beta was as follows:
1. Mount Windows 7 beta ISO with Daemon Tools Lite
2. Run the setup program from it (or maybe I extracted the ISO to a directory and then ran the setup)
3. Install Windows 7 to the D: partition that I had created, while running Vista
4. The beta automatically configured dual boot. If I booted Vista, Vista viewed "itself" as drive C, and Windows 7 as something like drive D. If I booted Windows 7, it viewed "itself" as drive C, and Windows Vista as drive E. This was perfect.
I've been putting off installing the RC due to being busy/lazy, but I finally tried doing it over the weekend. I have tried four times, and all four have met with the same fate. The dual-boot configuration that gets generated looks right. Windows Vista boots viewing "itself" as drive C, and 7 as drive D. Windows 7, however, views "itself" as drive D, and Windows Vista as drive C.
Windows 7, 32 bit, 12 partitions on 3 hdd's, Windows 7 on C:
When migrating to Windows 7 I first tried to update my Vista which I had used happily for 2 years. Installation went fine, but there were too many problems after.
So I bought a new 1 GB hdd and installed Windows 7 there from scratch. It is on a partition with drive letter C. I copied most of my old partitions to the new hdd, went fine.
When trying to delete one of the old hdd's with EASEUS Partition Master Home 4.1.1 manager software, there is one partition on it (which once before was called C, then successfully renamed to Z ) which I can't delete. I has on it the following folders:
$RECYCLE.BIN
Boot
System Volume Information (locked)
-->and files:
BOOTSECT.BAK
bootmgr
They are only 30,5 MB in size. So I resized the partition to 1 GB.
EASEUS characterizes it as Status = System, Pri/Log = Primary. Windows Disc manager characterizes it as System, Active, Primary Partition.
My question is: Can I change the drive letter from Z to B without risking the whole system to be unbootable? (and maybe never be bootable again?) When trying I just get the usual Windows warning. I would be most grateful for an answer explaning what and why or why not.
I deleted my existing OS then created two new partitions on the same drive. Then I installed Vista on one partition and that partition was properly named "c" as ususal. Then I started Windows 7 setup.exe from a different hard drive and let Windows 7 install itself into its own partition. When I got to "My Computer" the Windows 7 partition was labelled as "I" instead of the expected "C" which had never happend before when I did the same thing.
Does anyone know a save way to label the Win 7 drive as "C" while in Windows 7?
I lost my Event Viewer, and had to do a repair installation to fix it. Unfortunately, during the repair install, Windows decided to rename my second HD as the D: drive... it was K: before that. Now I cannot access any of my docs, pictures, music, or videos through the normal means... they don't show up in libraries or explorer, and apps like Restorator and Sure Thing (CD labeler) cannot find them. I think that means the paths are broken..?
It won't allow me to rename the HD back into K: (it's not listed as available). I can access the data by clicking Computer > D, and I can see the data is there, but its unusable as of now. Any ideas?
I have a USB external hard drive that I keep all my documents etc on (had it for years)I upgraded from Vista Home to & Home Premium then had to upgrade recently to Professional to run my Sage. Through all these upgrades my ext. drive ran fine. Occasionally the drvie letter would change if I had something else plugged into the USB, this was always easily corected in disk management by changing the drive path.The connection on the case packed up so I had to get the drive put into a new case, now when I plug it in the drive is assigned G instead of F, I tried to change the drive letter allocation in Disk Management but it won't let me as the program still thinks I have a second ext. hard drive which is labelled F. I suspect this has happened because when the usb connection broke the drive was disconnected suddenly instead of a proper eject.How do I get Disk Management to remove the inactive drive - i can't find any obvious way - eject, delete etc are all missing when I click on tools or tasks.
I had windows 7 on a SSD drive, assigned C: by windows 7, but it was full so I decided I'd clone it onto a bigger SSD drive using Acronis Disk Director. Went swimmingly I thought, both drives contained the same data. I wasn't too sure what my next step ought to be, whether acronis will have sorted it so that my new SSD now has the orginal SSD's drive letter or not. If it did, it will be mean a simple transition. But you guessed it, it left the drive letters the same, so when I booted up, it loaded from the orginal SSD. I then changed the original SSD drive letter, and used EasyBCD to remove the original boot and create a new one with the new SSD. Unfortunate now when I boot up Windows 7 I get a Preparing Your Desktop message for a couple of mins, but it's then followed by a screen with a cursor but no desktop icons or taskbar. It also seemed unresponsive to keyboard strokes.
C - Windows 7 Ultimate - SSD array D - Data - WD 640 spinner 1 E - Windows 7 Pro - 1st partition on WD 640 spinner 2 F - Windows 7 Enterprise - 2nd partition WD 640 spinner 2
Using Acronis True Image 2010, I keep 2 images of each OS on D.I'd like to put an image of C onto E, then make some changes to it. I think I tried this back in the Vista beta days, but can't recall if I ever got it to work, tempted to say "no".
After installing Windows 7 into a new partition, the OS started up fine from the new dual boot screen, but I didn't have access to my Win XP partition from within explorer. In disk management, I was able to add a letter to my WinXP volume (I took the next available "O") and it popped up in explorer no problem. However, after restarting, Win 7 begins to load, then BSODs way too fast to think about catching with camera.
I got the option to run startup repair at the restart, and I did so. The conclusion there was that I had plugged in a device during the last session that was now causing problems. That is bogus, unless that device is my newly lettered partition. I read many a thread in here about re-lettering a partition that had lost its letter in the install (usually the other OS volume in a dual-boot environment), but didn't see those posters then have issues upon restart.
I can boot into XP, although here now NONE of my drives have letters.
Any Help? I really was diggin' my Windows 7 time, and really enjoyed taking advantage of all my RAM and x64 versions of CS4 and CAD.
My Floppy Drive has the drive letter assignment (A). I would rather have it be (F). The traditional way to change drive letters is under disk management on right-click of My Computer. However, Floppy drives are not visible in the list. How can I change the letter?
I have built a computer for video editing and named the hard drives (C for the main drive, (M for the drive holding my music, (P for the drive for photos, and I named the drive to store my videos (V. However when I tried to write path to the V: drive I was told V: is an invalid path, I suppose because of the confusion with a followed by a / which would give you a / which can be confused with V but is not exactly the same. I went to My Computer and right clicked on the V: drive and clicked on "rename" in the drop down menu and changed the name to "Storage" but the (V persisted. Then I renamed again and named the drive "Storage (S" and now in "My Computer" the drive is shown as "Storage (S (V" When writing a path to put videos on this drive can I use either S:/ or V:/ to get videos into this drive? Is there some way to remove the (V
Had an XP dual boot with Windows 7 RTM. Deleted XP C: drive and moved RTM D: drive over into it's space. I would like to keep and license this installation using retail Windows 7 Ultimate Signature Edition received with party pack.
Is there a way to change the Windows 7 D: drive to C: by running a repair install (upgrade over OS) as I would like to find a way to do this without having to do a clean install.
Ok so here's a little backstory before I jump into my problem. I've got 2 harddrives installed; a SSD and a regular HDD. The SSD is labeled C: since it has Windows and other core programs while the HDD is labeled B:. The solid state is almost full while the regular one still has over a terabyte of space left to fill up. Normally, I have no problem installing new programs or games to the HDD till now.When I went to install my new game on B: it kept giving me invalid directory errors. So I went to the game's forums and discovered that the reason that issue was happening was because the game recognized drive letters A and B as floppy drives as opposed to hard drive letters. Further investigation revealed that apparently this little bit of design is hardcoded into the game and there really isn't any work around except changing the drive letter. So I looked up how to do so and made the change.....then the problems started.After changing the drive letter from B: to Z: I kept getting 'path does not exist' error message with features and hardware connected to Windows on C:.
For example, my DVD-ROM drive is labeled D: and everytime I tried to install the game after the drive letter change I got 'D:\, path does not exist. make sure the path is correct and try again' error. Another example, when trying to go to Device Manager to start a fix I couldn't because of 'explorer.exe, path does not exist' error. Basically, every step I tried where anything was connected to C: or D: I got the 'path does not exist' error. At this point I've done a system restore to before the drive letter changed and I'm running as I was before trying to install the game.My question is, how do I change the driver letter of my HDD without getting all the 'path does not exist' errors? If that's not possible, how do I fix the 'path does not exist errors' when the path starts with C: or D:? Is it done the same way I would with a program through the properties tab in the target path section and start in section? Or is there something more invasive I need to do when the path issue starts with C: and D:
I recently set up a new Systemax SYX-1113 PC with a SSD (C:) for Win 7 Pro and a 1TB HDD (G:) for my user libraries and programs. I need to upgrade the HDD from a 1GB to a 2 GB drive so I cloned the 1TB (G:) drive to a new 2TB (H:) drive. My new challenge is figuring out how to switch the drive letters on the two HDDs so that Windows looks to the new drive for the user directories and program files. I tried using disk manager in Windows 7 and got the BSOD - I guess it didn't like me changing the location of the active user profile. I assume I need to boot the PC from something other than the C: drive to make the change.
So I can't change the drive letter. Do I need to use Partition Magic again? The more I keep hearing/reading "do you have a backup?" - makes me believe the tool (OS) isn't capable of handling/accessing the data properly.
I recently built my computer and installed a ssd and a hdd, the OS is on the ssd which is the c drive but since it is smaller than the hdd I tried to change the letters around and make the hdd the c drive using regedit because the default install location seems to be the c drive and after restarting the computer it boots up and says preparing your desktop then goes to a blue screen with just the cursor. I tried booting in safe mode and all I get there is a black screen also
my boot drive leter. recently bought a ssd installed my edition of win7pro 64 onto it no problems except i had my old hdd still plugged in which was my c drive letter ,thus i installed operating system onto my ssd with an e drive letter.ok so i have tried to run a couple of programmes which i use which have failed because the programme is looking for a specific file in c boot directory which i obviously havent got....hope you can understand what im getting at.so big question how do i change my ssd boot drive letter to :c and that all my existing programmes will still work.
I'm not sure what the trigger was but my C drive where my os is installed apparently took the drive letter of an external drive that I use for backup. It is now the X drive and I cannot boot. I do get the repair screen but cannot repair as there is no operating system to choose. Booting from windows disk makes no difference here.My bios (uefi) can see the disk, I can also see it from the command prompt?
As currently configured, XP is on drive C:, Win 7 was added to drive E:, and the system is currently run as a dual boot. Attempting to boot without the XP drive present will yield a "NTLDR is missing" error very early in the boot process.
I have already tried the following:
(1) I moved the hidden Windows Boot Manager files (bootmgr as well as the associated Boot folder) from the XP drive root to the Win 7 drive root.
(2) After physically removing the XP drive, I rebooted to the Win 7 installation DVD, and used the "Repair Your Computer" option to pull up the "Recovery Tools". Then, using the command prompt utility, ...
(3) I attempted to write a new boot sector to the Windows 7 disk using the command: Bootrec /fixboot, - that yields an error though. The Bootrec /fixmbr claimed success, but ultimately did not make Win 7 drive bootable.
I had to reconnect drive C: just to boot into Win 7 again to write this. I do have files backed up, but to format and reinstall files would take many hours beyond just the time to transfer 400 GB of data, since I have dozens of purchased applications that need to be freshly reinstalled and validated as well. Basically I want my E: drive now to be my boot drive while the C: drive is reformatted and used for general storage.
Any idea how to make my Win 7 drive bootable? Do I need a partition program that is more adept at creating a viable boot sector, or is that even the problem?
I have installed a year before UBUNTU on my pc with dual boot (i.e. use either window 7 or ubuntu).the NTFS partition that contains the UBUNTU was corrupted and i wanted to take the dual boot from my PC. I used the instructions from the web site: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-...t-environment/but the disk management tool would not let me delete the NTFS partition.Could any one help me delete the NTFS partition and use just windows 7 as the only boot. step by step help would be great.
i have a new work laptop with xp sp3 on it. I want to install w7 64 bit as a dual boot, but only have 1 physical drive. i cannot remove my current installation as it is pre-build from work, but can partition the drive etc. However on trying to install w7 64 bit I get a message saying cannot install windows 7 on efi drive with mbr, not gpt. Can I do what I want without screwing up my xp installation?
I have successfully formatted my second HD into 3 partitions: Windows 7 x86, Windows 7 64 bit, and XP. The startup menu works fine but the two Windows 7 lines are the same. I may not be using the correct term for startup menu, but it is the one that appears when dual booting. Anyway, I would like to find the file so I can change the two identical lines to different lines. That is, instead of both saying "windows 7" I can change them to "Windows 7 x86" and Windows 7 x64" or something like that. Anybody know where that file is?
I had Windows XP Pro running on my PC and I've installed Windows 7 using dual-boot.I want to create a command line BAT file that will allow me to change the default OS system before I boot. For example If I'm working on XP and wants 7 to start-up automatically then I'll execute the batch file and it will manipulate the boot info so that i won't have to select it, and if i work in Windos 7 and want to automatically restart to xp i will run another BAT file.I was able to do it in windows 7 using the command line bcdedit.exe application tha can control any aspect of the boot settings, but i couldn't find anyway to control the boot settings from within XP because the boot "belongs" to windows 7 and XP doesn't even "know it" or able to access it.
However I have a third-party application able to do that called VISTABOOTPRO, so i can assume it is indeed possible, but i want to create a simple one-click procedure to do it for me.
I have Win XP 32 bit on my old drive. I buy Win 7 full retail and a new HD. I set bios to boot from cd etc. Win 7 starts up. It shows the 2 drives, so I select new drive...no problems. It starts install. I leave it to do its stuff.When I come back its up and all ok.I dint get any option to boot from XP. The drive was listed as "SYSTEM" but not old Windows or anything.
Also ASUS chipset drivers dont work and they were listed as 7 drivers.I tried Vista drivers but it normally shuts down and restarts. Nothing.
ok so im having a weird problem thats probably very easy to fix.
background info: before my Windows 7 install i had 3 partitions
vista 64
xp 32
empty (soon to be linux)
when i downloaded the newest win 7 build i deleted my xp 32 partition and installed Windows 7 on that partition. because Windows 7 creates that "reserve partition" or what ever, it extended my EMPTY partition with my vista partion. which cause it to become a "logical drive" rather than a "boot" drive. aka i cannot figure out how to access my vista OS.. rather annoying since im just toying with Windows 7 atm.