Win7/Win7 Dual Boot drive letter trouble

Hello all...

My goal is to run a Win7/Win7 dual boot system with one installation for day to day operations (MAIN) and then second installation strictly for gaming (GAMER).

I have successfully installed Win7 twice. During clean install i created 30GB partition (C: ) and put MAIN there. No problems. I loaded that up and from within Disk Management created a second partition on the same physical drive and named it (D: ).

I booted from the Win7 install DVD and then installed GAMER to the (D: ) partition. No problems. I am able to boot into each installation (MAIN and GAMER) from the boot manager without any troubles.

When I boot into the MAIN installation, the system path/partition is (C: ) and the os files for the second installation, GAMER, can be seen on (D: ) just fine.

However, when i boot into the GAMER installation, its system path is also (C: ) and the partition for MAIN somehow got renamed to (G: )

I would like it so that when I boot into MAIN (which was installed to C: ), that partition stays named (C: ) and when i boot into GAMER (which was installed to D: ), that partition stays named (D: ). Eventhough both installations see themselves as (C: ) when i boot into them, it does not seem to cause any problems.

So how should I do my second Win7 installation to a partition named (D: ) and force it to keep that name when i boot into it?

Thanks,
Jeff

Hello Jeff

So you have two Window7 installs on two different partitions??

Did you have any USB devices plugged in?

Can you boot into Windows at all?

Could you Post a screen shot of Disk Management?

Yes, two Win7 installs on two different partitions (C and D)
No USB devices
I can boot into each installation without any problems...they are running just fine.

The problem is when i boot into the installation that was installed to D, it sees itself as C and the other partition gets automatically renamed to G.

Here is the capture from disk management after booting into the installation that was originally installed onto the D partition (GAMER). Notice how it sees itself as being on C and the other installation (MAIN) sees itself as being on G.

My goal is to have one installation on C: that sees itself on C: and one installation on D:
that sees itself on D:

Perhaps i should install the second one from within the first after booting into it (as opposed to booting from the DVD)

Since you installed Games last,. it took over the C: partition,..

Take dive N yo O because you have no D: drive and keep changing letters until you get it right,.''You will never be able to change Drive C: however,.

This is normal for dual booting.

I recommend to leave it as it is, everything will run better. If you force a partition letter change you will likely have problems.

If you have a good reason to change the drive letters, just post it here and we'll try to find a solution for you.

Yes,. that's true,. unless its just data file,. but if her] starts screwing around with programs, they won';y match up in the registry and may Boy work,. That;s the error message you receive when you try to change drive letters.

Sorry about that spleener

Even though it's really just a cosmetic issue since both installations are running properly, I'd still like to try and get them both set up on partitions with unchanging drive letters. Maybe I'm neurotic?!

I have had my previous 3 boxes setup this way and would like to maintain it for consistency. In fact, my previous build had 3 installations (day to day, gaming, and testing). But that might have to wait until i get this figured out.

I'm beginning to wonder if I should install the second Win7 from within the first instead of booting from the install DVD. Will this make a difference? That is install 1st Win7 to C partition, boot, disk management, create D partition in Win7, launch install DVD for second Win7 and install to D.

Thanks for the suggestions and help,
Jeff

spleener said:

Perhaps i should install the second one from within the first after booting into it (as opposed to booting from the DVD)

Click to expand...

That will do the trick.

Beginning with the RTM, as I recall, Win7 began seeing itself in many cases as C no matter what other drives show when you are in them.

This was nice but disconcerting at first because of the concern that programs pointing to a certain drive would fail to see the relative lettering.

As it has turned out, this was all taken into consideration when Win7 made this change as it affects performance not in the slightest.