Windows 7: Swapping System Drive Letters in Dual Boot Setup

If you install Win7 from XP desktop, it will take another letter besides C because XP is holding C.

XP is sitting on C and too old to know how to release it so that the booted OS can always be C as when Win7 and Vista are installed from boot.

At this point I have no problem starting over and giving it another go. Is the best way to go to delete the Win7 partition and recreate it without assigning it a drive letter? I still won't be able to boot from the Win7 DVD, since for some reason neither of my DVD drives will co-operate which is how I got into this mess in the first place. Someone recommended this article about installing Win7 from a USB drive, which sounds promising, but involved.

Try this Windows Seven Forums tutorial instead.

I used it a couple of weeks ago on a neighbour's laptop whose system was hosed and had a non-working DVD drive. It got me out of trouble big-time.

USB Windows 7 Installation Key Drive - Create

You want to boot the installer or you'll not solve the drive letter problem. You also need it for Repairs if Win7 won't start.

Write the DVD ISO (extracted with ImgBurn) to flash stick using Universal USB Installer with Win7 in dropdown menu. Boot under USB, Removable, or HD's using one time Boot Menu key.

But you should be able to boot a good DVD if you tried other OD's. Did you burn it yourself? If so, confirm ISO or download another and burn to DVD using ImgBurn at 4x speed. Then use the one-time BIOS Boot Menu key, or set it to boot in BIOS: How to Boot your Computer from a Bootable CD or DVD

For better help, can you post the screenshot.

Thanks for all the great info guys.
seavixen32, the article looks interesting but I'll have more time to read it later this week. If I try the boot from USB technique, will it work with a USB Ext. drive too? I just glanced over the article at this point but it seems to be geared toward Flash drives.

gregrocker, it's a commercial DVD. I did see a "Removable" listing in my BIOS under in Boot sequence and it was the first listed until I changed it to my DVD drive, so my pc will boot from a USB drive. But as I asked sv32 does that go for an ext. HD as well?

theog:
Is this what you're asking for?It's my Disk Management dialog (while in XP)

I'd use a flash stick as externals can be problematic but stick works every time.

Then set your HD first in BIOS so the stick doesn't interfere later during install by autostarting at reboots.

Use the one-time BIOS Boot Menu key to initially boot the flash stick.

I already own a program called PowerISO and I have a 4GB flash drive that's only been used a few times. I can clear everything off it, np.

So in PowerISO I would choose "Make image from CD/DVD ROM", select .iso as destination file and the flash drive as the destination. Correct?

I'm pretty sure however that PowerISO will extract the ISO intact as well as ImgBurn.

However the only app I've found which never fails writing to flash stick is Universal USB Installer with Win7 in dropdown menu. It's tiny and doesn't even need to be installed, just run it.