New Install - Big Problem

I have been running the RC version of W7 for quite some time, but I have now received my downloaded Windows 7 Professional DVD. I actually have 4 physical hard drives and the RC version was installed on the 1st partition of the 4th drive and had the drive letter J. The first and second partitions of drive 1 are Vista and XP, with drive letters C and D respectfully. All my Documents are stored on another drive (H) and can be accessed from any of my operating systems. I deleted the J partiton on drive 4 and reformatted it in NTFS. Then I booted up with my new Windows 7 DVD and installed Windows 7 on the drive J partition. Lo and behold when it all got installed, it is now calling itself as installed on drive C! And it has changed all my other drive letters putting them all out of kilter. I did not have that problem with the RC version. I purposely set it not to activate because I don't want it activated until I'm sure everything is right. So now I need to start all over but this time I want the Windows 7 installation to be on Drive J.
Actually, it *is* on the right drive and right partition, but I know you can't just change the drive letter.
What did I do wrong and how do I get it right?
I *do* have an Acronis image of the old RC version that I can put back, but if I'm not mistaken, I can't do an upgrade to the RC version.
Thanks for any help you may offer.

I don't understand, what's out of kilter? You wouldn't be accessing files between operating systems, would you? If not, why do you care what each OS partition calls itself? Other than wanting to see the same drive letter designations, is something actually not working?

Damon

ps I believe that there was another thread here not too long ago where someone's Win7 drive letter changed, and the conclusion at the end was that it didn't really matter as long as everything worked

Problem there is that everything in the registry is pointing to C drive. If I changed the physical drive letter to J then I would be in deep doodoo I think. I wish there were some kind of app that would comb the registry and change drive letters...

err.. you can change drive letters.... right click your Computer icon on the desktop or start menu and go to manage.
Under storage click disk management, you can than rename drives.....

Just for a little info

and also if you plug a har drie in that you know is formatted and it doesn't show up, come here and make sure its set active.

Lomaaaz said:

i think u can use partition manager from the device manager to change the drive letter
here is some screens to help
but i dont recomend this method it does it only on the installed os not (temp) and will effect to have a missing drive in the order
but here is it anyway

You cannot change the partition letter on a system drive. MS tutorial for doing this is only if the drive letters change mysteriously. You will definitely boink your install.

There is no mystery here. Win7 arranges drive letters so that it is always the C: drive when you are in it. This has no effect whatsoever on your file storage or referencing of other drives.

Test drive it for awhile and see. You are all set to bail out of XP and Vista with your future OS lettered C: This should occur around.......tomorrow.

gregrocker said:

Lomaaaz said:

i think u can use partition manager from the device manager to change the drive letter
here is some screens to help
but i dont recomend this method it does it only on the installed os not (temp) and will effect to have a missing drive in the order
but here is it anyway

You cannot change the partition letter on a system drive. MS tutorial for doing this is only if the drive letters change mysteriously. You will definitely boink your install.

There is no mystery here. Win7 arranges drive letters so that it is always the C: drive when you are in it. This has no effect whatsoever on your file storage or referencing of other drives.

Test drive it for awhile and see. You are all set to bail out of XP and Vista with your future OS lettered C: This should occur around.......tomorrow.

Actually, bailing out of Vista NOW would solve my problem since it is installed on C drive anyway. Since I posted, I have reinstalled Win7 three more times. The last time, I added a partition to the tail end of my 3rd physical hard drive and tried it there.. It still comes up as C.
I still don't understand why I was able to install RC 7100 and have it come up as J. I can't imagine they changed anything in the final release that would change that.
OK. I never liked Vista anyway and rarely went in to it. So I guess it will now become history. However, XP will probably remain my OS of choice for quite some time.
Thanks for your input!

mewnlite said:

gregrocker said:

Lomaaaz said:

i think u can use partition manager from the device manager to change the drive letter
here is some screens to help
but i dont recomend this method it does it only on the installed os not (temp) and will effect to have a missing drive in the order
but here is it anyway

You cannot change the partition letter on a system drive. MS tutorial for doing this is only if the drive letters change mysteriously. You will definitely boink your install.

There is no mystery here. Win7 arranges drive letters so that it is always the C: drive when you are in it. This has no effect whatsoever on your file storage or referencing of other drives.

Test drive it for awhile and see. You are all set to bail out of XP and Vista with your future OS lettered C: This should occur around.......tomorrow.

Actually, bailing out of Vista NOW would solve my problem since it is installed on C drive anyway. Since I posted, I have reinstalled Win7 three more times. The last time, I added a partition to the tail end of my 3rd physical hard drive and tried it there.. It still comes up as C.
I still don't understand why I was able to install RC 7100 and have it come up as J. I can't imagine they changed anything in the final release that would change that.
OK. I never liked Vista anyway and rarely went in to it. So I guess it will now become history. However, XP will probably remain my OS of choice for quite some time.
Thanks for your input!

And that is just what I have done. No more Vista and Windows 7 is on C drive. The rest of the drives show up just as they should. With the help of VistaBootPro (which works in WIndows 7 too) I got access back to Windows XP on drive D, and I can still even boot up the RC 7100 which I restored back to drive J.
As a side note, I had the 64 bit RC version, but have decided to go with the 32 bit version on the new install. So far it rocks but it'll take me at least all weekend to get everything installed back again.