Change Driver Letters in Windows 7

[2 Bunny]

I recently upgraded to Windows 7 from RC to RTM, and was disappointed to find that it is identical in every way except for the wallpaper and a new glitch that was not present in the RC: Windows 7 now decides its own drive letters. Before it just took the same drive letters that xp used. I dualboot xp and 7, and when I boot xp, the letters are normal (xp is on "C", 7 on "M", HP recovery partition on "D", extra files on "N", backup partition "Z"), but here in the wonderful world of RTM 7, what was formerly Drive "M", is now "C", "D" is now "G", "N" is now "F", and if thats not puzzling enough, "C" is now "E". Did I catch 'em all? That's right, Windows 7 managed to confuse every single drive letter, a problem I never had in the RC.

Is this fixable? Can they all be returned to their original state? I'm thinking of buying a laptop and don't want the same nonsense inflicted on that when I dualboot xp and 7 on it, can it be dealt with beforehand?

Thanks.

- 2 Bunny

 

[Prof Kerfuffle]

You can repartition them or just revert the drive letters back.

(re-assigning drive letters)
To do this by disk Management go to start, right click computer, then click manage, then click Disk Management on the panel, right click the external drive, then click "change drive letter and paths" then if its blank click ad if it has a drive letter click remove and then add then resign it a letter on the drop down menu, OK and close all that then check.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/82994-drive-letter-add-change-remove-windows-7-a.html

 

[2 Bunny]

PARTITION Reply

You can repartition them or just revert the drive letters back.

(re-assigning drive letters)
To do this by disk Management go to start, right click computer, then click manage, then click Disk Management on the panel, right click the external drive, then click "change drive letter and paths" then if its blank click ad if it has a drive letter click remove and then add then resign it a letter on the drop down menu, OK and close all that then check.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/82994-drive-letter-add-change-remove-windows-7-a.html

You can do that with the partition that it is installed on as well?

- 2 Bunny

 

[Brink]

Hello 2 Bunny,

Unfortunately no. You cannot change the drive letter of the drive/partition that Windows 7 is installed on. Only for the other drives and partitions.

 

[2 Bunny]

FAIL Reply

Hello 2 Bunny,

Unfortunately no. You cannot change the drive letter of the drive/partition that Windows 7 is installed on. Only for the other drives and partitions.

So you're saying they subtracted the feature, because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could have it on "M" in the RC.

- 2 Bunny

 

[Brink]

Sorry. but by default, the currently started Windows has always been the C: partition. It cannot be changed from within Windows. Attempting to change the Windows drive/partition letter can render it unbootable.

 

[SevenUser12]

you should try go to manage (right click Computer icon) then go to Storage > Disk Management, right click on the Volume/Partition and choose Change Driver letter and paths..

 

[karlsnooks]

2 Bunny,

Although I'm strongly opposed to dual booting, especially between a state-of-the-art OS, namely, Win 7 and a dinosaur, namely, XP, you can install first Win 7 on the new notebook so that C is assigned to Win 7 and then follow up with XP. Now how you go about that is for some of the others to tell you.

As I said, I've never been a fan of dual-booting. Now if the notebook is a newer model then one alternative that you can consider is installing XP in virtual mode. I haven't looked but we probably have a tutorial on that. I have run XP in virtual mode on my Win 7 laptop. That went very well but I only did that so I could easily demonstrate to another certain how-to actions in XP.

 

[Bill2]

2 Bunny,
Now if the notebook is a newer model then one alternative that you can consider is installing XP in virtual mode. I haven't looked but we probably have a tutorial on that. I have run XP in virtual mode on my Win 7 laptop. That went very well but I only did that so I could easily demonstrate to another certain how-to actions in XP.

XP mode requires at least 1.25 gig RAM (2 gig preferred) and a processor that supports virtualisation. OP's hardware specs are quite basic, for the processor he needs to check with something like Securable for virt. support.

I experimented with XPM on a similarly equipped machine and was quite disappointed with the performance. There was a noticeable lag between typing and things appearing on the screen. If one needs to use a critical app that just won't run under Windows 7, then this solution will get you by, although I personally have found very few apps/drivers that don't work with win7.

 

[karlsnooks]

Bill,
The mention was of buying a new laptop. The probability that XP mode will be supported in hardware is high for a new laptop, and even if not, MS finally decided to make installing a virtual XP without the hardware support to be possible. I tried out both ways. both ways worked. True is that my laptop has 4 GB ram. Performance was quite satisfactory. None of that delay stuff between typing and action.

 

[2 Bunny]

STRANGE Reply

Sorry. but by default, the currently started Windows has always been the C: partition. It cannot be changed from within Windows. Attempting to change the Windows drive/partition letter can render it unbootable.

Not in the RC. It adopted the drive letter that xp originally assigned it. It was never "unbootable".

- 2 Bunny