new HD is recognized as Local Disk E instead of Local Disk C

[virginiajack]

A Win XP pc suffered a HD crash. Put in new HD and reinstalled. However,
the new HD is recognized as Local Disk (E) instead of Local Disk (C). I am
having problems with drivers for the Ethernet card and the video and others.
Is that because the Local Disk (C) is not there anymore? How do I fix that?

Jack

 

[paratwa]

The only way I have found to fix this is to remove the extra drive and then reinstall windows. Also remove all other drives except for the cd/dvd player that you are installing from. Including any flash drives or smart card readers.

You can not change the drive letter of the HDD with the OS on it. Windows will not let you.

 

[virginiajack]

There is no extra drive. The HD which crashed was removed, the new HD installed, and then the software was reinstalled. The dirver problems are reflected under Device Manager, so I downloaded a bunch of drivers via another pc and copied them onto a CD and inserted into problem pc (Dell Dimension 2400). However no luck. BTW, the lettering on other dirves has not changed from what it used to be (A Drive - floppy, D Drive - CD ROM drive).

Jack

 

[paratwa]

Is there a c: drive showing at all? If not that's a strange one on me. But that's besides the point, in order for you to get your drive back to a local c: you will still need to reformat and reinstall.

Like I said before, windows will not allow you to change drive letters on the drive with the OS on it.

 

[meanman]

most programs will want to install to the c drive by default the only way to change that would be if there is a brows or custom button when you go to install the programs, you are best trying to install windows again.

 

[virginiajack]

Well, it turns out the problem had nothing to do with the OS being on the E drive, except that the drivers did want the C drive. But using E instead of C made it work. Probably should reinstall Windows -- or do I really need to reinstall the HD?

 

[paratwa]

I think you would be better off reinstalling.

 

[meanman]

you should reinstall windoes but first you need to no why it happend or you could end up with the same problem.

 

[Michael]

You could always partition the drive, ghost the OS onto the second partition, rename that empty partition to C: and ghost the OS back onto it.. if you didn't want to lost any data.

Support page (name or re-name drive letter)

Failing that, re-installing windows won't out right fix it, you'll need to make sure it's the second item in line during re-installation (e.g: A: floppy, C: Hard drive, D: CD/DVD Drive) or windows will just re-name it incorrectly all over again.

 

[PC eye]

When installing the new drive you first have to partition and format it for a clean install of Windows unless you already had a clone of the previous drive and are trying to use that instead of a fresh copy. If you split the drive into two partitions and put the clone onto the second the first would then appear as E while Windows was running as C on the second one. This is why a clean install on a new drive with a new mbr always works best.