When Oct 22nd arrives question

mowerman · 18 Sep 2009

I'm currently running RC7100x64 on my C: drive. What I would like to do when my retail copy arrives is install it in a dual boot scenario on a separate partition on the same drive. Once I get it set up the way I want and all of my data and programs transfered to the new installation, I would like to then delete the RC7100 install. I know this can be done very easily. What I need to know is how do I change the new retail install's drive letter to C: once I delete the RC7100? Is this possible. I don't want to have to live with my new OS as drive E: or F: forever.

chaos · 18 Sep 2009

I don't think you can, but it's just a letter. What does it matter?

Barman58 · 18 Sep 2009

The default for post XP windows systems is for the active OS to be labelled as C: so this should not be an issue - When in the RC you will have c as your system drive and the same in the RTM.

The only time you can get issues is when installing a second OS from inside the first when the C:\ drive would not be available - in this case you should boot into the RTM immediately after install and set the drive to C:\ using the Drive management utility in computer management - this may cause issues at this time, but will definitely cause issues after you have installed software

ken9122 · 18 Sep 2009

You can try that and it will eventually work.
In the long run I think you will be better off making a full system Backup, copy as most of your data to another driver
Run Windows Easy Transfer( see tutorial on this site).
Do a clean install, transfer your settings from WET and you will be much happier.
I've done this several times with excellent results.

Ken

Barman58 · 18 Sep 2009

Good advice Ken

My personal method of choice is to always have at least two Partitions, one for the OS & programs and one for data, With the tools built into modern OSs and apps it is not difficult to move the majority of user data and set-ups to the Data drive so that there is less tweaking to do to bring an updated OS back to full working order.

And of course it has the secondary advantage of affording your data a little extra protection from OS crashes :)

Snufffed · 18 Sep 2009

mowerman said:

I'm currently running RC7100x64 on my C: drive. What I would like to do when my retail copy arrives is install it in a dual boot scenario on a separate partition on the same drive. Once I get it set up the way I want and all of my data and programs transfered to the new installation, I would like to then delete the RC7100 install. I know this can be done very easily. What I need to know is how do I change the new retail install's drive letter to C: once I delete the RC7100? Is this possible. I don't want to have to live with my new OS as drive E: or F: forever.

1. make a new partition
2. see the tutorial move all your data to the new partition
3. cleaninstall win7 on the same partition as RC 7100
4. 7100 will become windows.old
5. use the cleaner furnished by Win7 and it will delete all the
old windows junk. namely windows.old
Now link back to you data partition/.
done.