1 (edited by OldGrantonian 2012-07-05 18:59:42)

Topic: [SOLVED] Repartitioning changed my drive letters from C/D to H/I

I have WinXP Home.

About 2 years ago, I successfully altered my C and D partitions (probably with GP 0.4.4-1).

During the repartition, my C drive was changed to H, and my D drive was changed to I.

I tried various DOS techniques (I'm not a techie), but I was unable to change the drive letters. (I could probably change I to D, but not H to C, because it's the "root").

I've had no problems with these letters. All new programs were installed on H.

Now today, I'm prevented from installing a program on H by the program installer.

Is there any way to change my letters back to C/D?

2

Re: [SOLVED] Repartitioning changed my drive letters from C/D to H/I

According to the microsoft database, it is impossible in practice to change the letter of the system partition (you can easily find it, I think).

This is a problem that can occur in case of migration of the installation to another hard drive. If you duplicate the partition to a new hard drive and then boot into windows with both drives connected, the system detects the new drive and partitions and registers them. As it isn't allowable to have a letter corresponding to two partitions at the sane time, the new one is named by the first free letter. These letters are kept by the system registry in many keys, so it is not possible in practice to everything fix.
The best practice is to duplicate the hard drive (or copy the partitions to a new drive) with a Linux tool, remove the old drive, install the new one in the place of the old drive and then reboot into the original system.

Simply resizing a partition doesn't affect partition letters, so I guess you did copies of the partitions.
That program installer obviously doesn't provide any option to use other than C: partition.
I'm afraid you have to reinstall the o.s. to fix the problem, unless you find anything in some mswindows tech forum.

Another idea, if you have some free space on the drive (or on any other hard drive on the computer): create a new small partition that you name C: (this would be possible if you don't have already any C: partition in use), to see if this can solve the problem.

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***

3

Re: [SOLVED] Repartitioning changed my drive letters from C/D to H/I

Thanks for the useful ideas. I'll have a try  smile

class413 wrote:

Simply resizing a partition doesn't affect partition letters

Although I'm not a techie, I've been using GParted since it was invented by Al Gore  smile

That was the first time that I saw drive letters changing.

class413 wrote:

so I guess you did copies of the partitions.

Nope. All I ever copy is my data folder to an external drive periodically.

GP is so reliable that I probably get lazy.

class413 wrote:

That program installer obviously doesn't provide any option to use other than C: partition.

While I was posting to this forum, I got a reply back from the developers.

To install in "Program Files", it must be on the C: drive.

But I can install it to any other folder on the H: drive  smile

Done that. Worked OK. (That's Bill Gates for you.)

But I'll keep investigating the issue of how to change the drive letter back to C. (Maybe WinXP will be obsolete before that.)

Thanks again.

4

Re: [SOLVED] Repartitioning changed my drive letters from C/D to H/I

Glad to read that the problem is fixed.

If so, you can add [SOLVED] to the topic title, by editing your initial post.
smile

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***