XP Boot Drive Letter - How to change?

[Anathor21]

Stupid problem here... hope there is a way to fix it w/o a full re-install.

I set up a new system and installed a USB multi-card reader, then installed XP. What I didn't notice at the time (until completely done) is that for some reason the card reader took up drive letters C,D,E,F,G - and the O/S installed itself on "H:".

I fully realize that, in theory at least, this makes no difference, but I'd really rather have it on C: so it's more "normal" (I don't trust any installed programs to actually use the OS correctly and be able to find shared dll's etc).

So, the question is this: Does anyone know how to change the drive letter w/o having to do a full reinstall? (note that device manager won't let you change drive letter on boot/system volume while XP is running).

Any assistance would be appreciated....

 

[Howell]

Stupid problem here... hope there is a way to fix it w/o a full re-install.

I set up a new system and installed a USB multi-card reader, then installed XP. What I didn't notice at the time (until completely done) is that for some reason the card reader took up drive letters C,D,E,F,G - and the O/S installed itself on "H:".

I fully realize that, in theory at least, this makes no difference, but I'd really rather have it on C: so it's more "normal" (I don't trust any installed programs to actually use the OS correctly and be able to find shared dll's etc).

So, the question is this: Does anyone know how to change the drive letter w/o having to do a full reinstall? (note that device manager won't let you change drive letter on boot/system volume while XP is running).

Any assistance would be appreciated....

You might be able to remove the card reader and then do an in-place upgrade on the OS.

 

[Fushigi]

Anathor, you aren't alone. I had a USB reader attached to my wife's PC when I rebuilt it this past summer. I didn't notice everything was drive G: until I already had Office and everything she uses loaded. I decided to live with it as I wasn't keen on blowing so many more hours getting everything the way she likes. The only problems so far have been with the Palm Desktop installer, for which there's a patch, and with some of the ancillary software that installs with the drivers for her HP printer/scanner/copier. IIRC the primary offender is something called HP Director. HP hard-coded to drive C: for their registry entries. Even running regedit & changing them doesn't actually fix the problem. Since Director isn't actually necessary (I'm sure some here would say that everything from HP isn't necessary), we don't run it.

Everything else has been OK.

 

[Anathor21]

Well, I'm lucky in that I noticed before all apps installed... reinstalling now (w/o card reader installed) now... Live and learn.

Thanks for considering the question

 

[mubs]

Too late for Anathor21, but just for the record, I found these links in my travels:

MS: How to restore the system/boot drive letter in Windows

MS: How to change drive letter assignments in Windows XP

Google