Advice please on swapping Win7 and XP drive letters (separate disks)

Hello Gromwood, welcome to the Seven Forums.

Your screenshots seem to be taken from XP, showing a (quite) normal Windows XP 7 Seven dual boot system.

Windows always uses the letter C: for system partition, where the operating system is installed. When you boot to Seven you will notice it has become partition C:, and again booting back to XP it will use the letter C:.

As far as I can see your Disk Management shows no issues, nothing to worry.

Kari

I will check something, will post later.

In the mean time a suggestion: Why dont you backup your user data from XP to another partition or external device, then simply boot the computer from Windows 7 install media and install it on top of XP, completely wiping the XP partition, then restore the user data to newly installed Seven? This way you get your Seven on first HDD and no more XP, which I understand is your plan anyway.

gromwood said:

Hello Kari

Thanks for replying. When I read (in XP) your reply , straightaway I did a restart and used the boot menu to boot into Win7. Then I took the screenshots attached. As you can clearly see, the Windows7 environment is drive letter D, not C

So at what point will your statement ... "When you boot to Seven you will notice it has become partition C:" become true ? From the screenshots it is not true at present.

I'm sorry if I did not make myself clear, the screenshots show what I currently have. What I want to end up with is a dual boot system with Win7 having drive letter C, and XP on separate disk with drive letter D. Can I achieve this and how ?

Thanks

Peter
(gromwood)

How come you do not have SP1? The screenshot says Build 7600 not 7601. You should get it for better security and performance first before doing anything else. (Unless it messes with the dual boot)

OK, I did a fast dual boot install to get screenshots.

I installed Windows 7 on secondary HDD on a PC which already contained Windows XP. After the first boot, this is how Windows 7 looks:

Disk Management clearly shows the older operating system Windows XP has gotten letter D: because Windows 7 installation took the C: for itself.

1. Disk Management shows Windows 7 partition as C:, Windows XP partition as D:
2. File Explorer > Computer shows Windows 7 partition as C:, Windows XP partition as D:
3. File Explorer > Computer > C: shows Windows 7 system folders installed on C:

Now booting to Windows XP, same computer:

Disk Management clearly shows the newer operating system Windows 7 has now gotten letter E: because Windows XP uses C: for its system drive and D: for CD/DVD drive.

1. Disk Management shows Windows XP partition as C:, Windows 7 partition as E:
2. File Explorer > Computer shows Windows XP partition as C:, Windows 7 partition as E:
3. File Explorer > Computer > C: shows Windows XP system folders installed on C:

This is the result if you do a clean install when installing the second Windows OS (in your case 7) on a dual boot in computer which already contains another Windows OS (in your case XP).

With clean install I mean that you start the Windows 7 installation by booting the computer with Windows 7 install media (DVD or USB), not by booting to Windows XP and launching Windows 7 installation from XP desktop.

Tutorial: Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP

Kari

Where is the DIsk Mgmt screenshot from Win7? We can tell better what's happened once we see it.

If Win7 is booting as anything other than C it normally means it was installed from the XP OS and not from the booted installer, so XP blocked the use of the letter C Win7 would have otherwise taken. If you don't mind having Win7 on D then you can leave it as is.

To reinstall so Win7 boots as C, unplug the XP HD, boot the Win7 installer to reinstall to its target HD making sure to delete its partition to create New and format first. In fact I would delete all partitions on that drive after backing up any needed data. You hardly need a second install of a defunct OS when you now have the best OS ever.

After Win7 install, plug back in XP HD to boot it using the one-time BIOS Boot Menu key. This keeps the HD's independent to come and go as you please. If you don't like that arrangement install EasybCD to Win7 to add XP which will still keep its System flag so that both remain independently bootable and one is not dependent upon the other as when you install with another OS plugged in.

If you are happy with Win7 performance and would like to keep it but would like to make it independently bootable, mark the XP C partition Active in Disk Mgmt, power down to unplug it, boot the Win7 installation media to run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times
until it starts on its own and holds the System boot files.

You can then choose which OS to boot via the BIOS, or install EasyBCD to Win7 to add the other OS while still maintaining each as independently bootable. Later if you need the now-hidden XP partition you can add it to a Dual Boot using Easy from Win7.

You may have to deactivate your current Windows 7 installation before doing what Greg says. Remember to keep your product key for activation of the clean install.

Greg is correct and you should unplug all other drives and re install windows 7, there is no reason to have it not showing as C.

Product Key Number - Uninstall and Deactivate in Windows