Just reinstalled Windows XP, the files that should be in the C:\ are in the F:\

bamhm182

bamhm182

New Member
Like the Title says, I just reinstalled Windows XP, and had the weirdest thing happen to me. Well, it's not really THAT weird, but it's never happened to me before.

I have a 20 GB HDD and a 160 GB HDD in my computer. Before I formatted/reinstalled XP, the 160 GB was the F drive, and the 20 GB was the C Drive, I formatted and reinstalled, now it's switched, the 160 GB is the C:\ and the 20 GB is the F:\. Anywho, I like it better where the HDD with all my Windows Files is the C:\, and my 160 GB HDD is the F:\.

So my question to all of you is is there a way to change the Drive letters? Or should I just reinstall again, this time unplugging the 160 GB HDD until I have XP all set up?
 
The first primary partition on the first hard disk (eg. primary master) will be C:.

As far as I know there is no way to change the drive letter of the partition that Windows is installed on.

If you want the Windows partition to become c:, simply disconnect all other disks while installing Windows.
 
When you reinstalled XP on the 160gb drive the boot information was set for that to be the default OS and automatically loads Windows there. This is why the older 20gb drive is seen with a different drive letter since you are in Windows there not in Windows on the 20gb. If you unplug the 20gb to reinstall XP again you will have to change the boot device order in the bios in order to load Windows on that drive and reverse settings to run Windows on the 20gb.

If your board has the F8 option at post for selecting the drive/device to boot from you nca choose either drive for the one time session. For making the 20gb default again you simply edit the boot.ini file and move the line for the 20gb above the line of information for the 160gb that way or change boot order in the msconfig utility.
 
I messed around a little bit and it won't let me change the F:\ to the C:\ because that's where Windows is, so I'm just going to unplug the 160 Gig and than reinstall.
 
Windows will always put the boot files on the first primary partition of the first hard disk. Its own partition will be C:. No matter where it is at.
 
It's not going to let you change another drive to C when you are on C no matter where you have Windows installed. When first starting up the system and Windows starts to load do you see a choice of two different Windows? You should if everything installed correctly see the 20gb copy of Windows under the now default copy installed on the 160gb drive.

If you choose the bottom copy on the 20gb and load that the 20gb is then seen as the C drive. You created a dual boot situation there where each copy of Windows will see itself as C. If you reinstall XP again with the 20gb unplugged and set the bios to boot with the 160gb later it still see itself as C. It's just that simple.
 
Oh, that's what I thought you were saying, but the thing is I didn't want to have to format my 160 gig because it had all my files backed up onto it, anyways, I reinstalled. The 20 gig is the C:\ now. Thanks for your help.
 
You reinstalled to the 20gb? You don't always have to reformat any drive to simply reinstall XP with a recent copy put on. The installer will automatically delete or repair the existing copy. All you needed to do there was simply change the boot order to have the 20gb copy of Windows be the default at startup. That's done by a simply edit of the boot.ini file to see the 20gb made default there or simply changing the order in the boot.ini section of the msconfig utility.

The only reason the 20gb is now seen as C is due to it now being the default copy after the reinstall there. If you see the second copy of Windows on the 160gb as an option and select that it will become C when that copy of Windows loads up. To see how to edit the boot.ini or set the boot order in the boot.ini section of the msconfig utility when dual booting with XP you''ll want to look over the information on this at http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/bootini.htm It's easy to follow and you will have this down in no time. :D
 
Oooooh, lol, yeah, okay, I didn't really know exactly what you were talking about last time. Like I said though, I already got it up. Thanks for your help, I'm still going to check out your article.

So basically what you were saying is to set up a dual boot, than switch over the XP on the 160 gig and than while I'm on there, edit the Boot.ini in the 20 gig, than when I'm back on the 20 gig's XP, than it'll say that the 20 gig is the C:\ correct?
 
With both drives already seeing Windows installed on both you already are in a dual boot situation. With Windows being reinstalled onto the 20gb you simply made that the default boot drive having the default copy of XP on it. Two copies of the same version of Windows are generally never needed. By unplugging the 160gb when reinstalling Windows on the 20gb you would have returned the 20gb to a stand alone default boot and OS drive.

While you are running either copy of Windows you can edit the boot.ini file. You simply browse to it and open it with a text editor like NotePad and make a quick change then save with the "all files" not doc or text file option. That will then overwrite the original. One good idea before making any mistakes with it would be to save a copy to even a folder on the 160gb drive. But you just reinstalled Windows on the 20gb making that the default again. The only reason for an edit of that now would be to remove the reference to the second copy on the 160gb drive.
 
Windows XP isn't installed on the 160 gig though, just the 20 gig, I unhid all the system files and everything, nothing's in the 160 except for my stuff... No Windows XP stuff...
 
So you deleted all XP system files and MS folders there for the reinstall on the 20gb to make that a stand alone. That works! It's better having only one copy of each version to avoid problem anyways. Eventually you may want to replace the small 20gb primary for a larger drive when you soon run out of room when installing more programs. By that time you will probably be looking at a new system anyways.
 
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