Is it possible to change a drives letter quickly and easily?

I just picked up my 200gb drive and re-installed windows on it [master], and now it's labelled f:\ while my backup 40gb drive [slave] is labelled c:\

Just annoying as I'm used to oldschool DOS days and c:\ being the master volume label ~_~

Computer Management -> Disk Management -> Right clicky -> Change drive letters and paths

Set your C: to be Z: then change F: to C: then Z: to ?: and your all done.

I went through this recently, couldn't find an easy answer so just ended up pulling all the drives out and installing windows with only the one drive in.

However, just did a bit more comprehensive googling and discovered http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/t1029418874
Scroll down to Pete's post.

Easy as pie

start
settings
control panel
admin tools (make sure ur in classic mode)
computer management
storage
disk management (local)
right click drive of choice and select the obvious option.

If you want to swap 2 drives then change the first to something random like z then that letter will be available and im sure u can figure the rest out.

edit: hrm teh beaten :( must type faster

last edited by rubba-chikin at 22:09:44 20/Feb/06

I don't think you're reading his question correctly.

http://images.ausimages.com/upload/2006-02-20/diskmgmt.JPG

last edited by evinco at 22:17:07 20/Feb/06

yah, that's what I get evinco.
Reading that link you gave me, I think I can't be f***ed and will just live with my system drive being F:\

I think i can get used to it :P

Thanks anyway though :)

[edit] Clicky
If I change the drive letters with this method, will things @#$ up?
I haven't got anything installed except : Video codecs, Java Runtime, Drivers etc. (all the basic necessity s***) no applications installed at the moment.

last edited by Loki at 22:27:53 20/Feb/06

Other than that a little googl0ring says that partition magic will do it.

Probably the easiest and most nube friendly way to do it without f***ing up registry keys etc providing you can obtain a copy ;)

I actually did live with it being F:\ for a while, until some not-exactly-ancient apps made by inconsiderate programmers refused to install/run on anything other than C:\.

Anyway, I wouldn't be game to follow that article - Microsoft's own warning, lol

Warning Do not use the procedure that is described in this article to change a drive on a computer where the drive letter has not changed.

and the guy-who-posted-the-link's follow up post:

UH DON'T DO THIS. I just had to learn how to restore the registry from dos. KEERIPES.

Hahaha loki just said brb reset and hasnt been back in 15 mins... I guess he also knows now it was a bad idea :P

Next time try partition magic heh :)

on any drive other than my windows one, I never EVER make a primary partition.

any partition other than my windows one, will always be logical inside extended partition.
that way windows will never move the second partition down a rung to become first partition. :)

Hahaha loki just said brb reset and hasnt been back in 15 mins... I guess he also knows now it was a bad idea :P

Next time try partition magic heh :)

Yer I had to re-install windows :(

Either way, I changed the lamo backup drive to D:\ then just quick-formatted and re-installed windows on the 200gb and it changed itself to C:\

Now going through the drudgery of re-installing crap again hsugh ^____^

Use Ghost or a freebie version of it. Make a ghost image of the old HDD, put in the new HDD and load the ghost image on it.