Dual boot installation has moved drive letters

[toolman59]

I have Windows 7 64 bit running on C: drive, today I decided to install a second copy onto D: drive to get ready for a fresh start in the near future. Once the installation was complete, I found that all but one of the drive letters had been re-allocated as noted in the attached screen shot of the new installation.
The latest install has allocated drive letter C: to the new installation and the original OS has been allocated to D: and other disks and partitions have had their drive letters altered.
I can still boot into the original OS and that disk manager shows everything as it should be.
Before I do anything that might totally wreck both OS's, how do I get all the drive letters lined up in the new OS to mirror what is in the original?
I have EasyBCD on the original OS.

Thanks in advance

toolman59

 

[DeaconFrost]

That screen shot makes my head spin. I'm not sure why you installed a second copy to act as a clean copy, rather than just do a clean install, but that could have complicated things.

If it was my system, I'd cut down on all the unnecessary partitions and just use directories. Then, I'd unplug any drives that weren't going to be my primary, and do a clean, fresh install to just that drive. I'm a firm believer in the K.I.S.S. principal.

 

[whs]

This is normal. The running system partition is always C:\ - and other partitions change letters too.. When you boot from your original system, the OS partition will be C:\ again. Nothing to worry about.

And yes - you have too many partitions.

 

[gregrocker]

Win7 correctly sees itself as C whenever correctly installed from booted DVD. It's smart.

 

[SIW2]

You can't now.

You could have set new installed letter to D.

Easiest way is to run setup from within your first installation.

btw I have 18 partitions on two HD's

 

[pbcopter]

When you are running from the new Windows 7 partition, you can change the other drive letters to what the were using Disk Management.

Windows 7 will be C:, regardless of which you boot from, new or old.

 

[toolman59]

You can't now.

You could have set new installed letter to D.

Easiest way is to run setup from within your first installation.

btw I have 18 partitions on two HD's

Thank you all for your replies.
I wiped the new installation and installed from within my existing installation, everything worked fine, all drive letters in their correct places.
I had forgotten that on my old computer I always had to install from within the existing OS because it would not boot from the windows DVD.
Over a period of time I will load the applications and set their default work folders etc. When I am happy with the setup, I will use the new installation for some weeks and then will format the original partition.

 

[gregrocker]

Since you're the first user out of hundreds I've come across on this issue who actually wants the OS partition on another drive letter, may I ask why?

Win7 is advanced enough to always assume C when installed correctly from the booted installer. I've never met a user who wants it on D or any other letter due to possible complications with programs.

If it were a question of your data drives being thrown out of their letter on the new install, those can be corrected in Disk Mgmt.

Just askin.

 

[SIW2]

Seems normal enough to me.

Much simpler to have all the letters the same whichever o/s you are booted into. Even more so if you have a lot of drives.

I do the same thing.

atm I have win8 C, win7 D and the other 16 drives on from that. The same wherever I am.

( The fact I hardly ever bother booting into win8 is beside the point.)

It is just the historical default practice that windows calls itself C (A and B being reserved for floppies)

I have only once had an amusing issue as a result.

I tried installing Macrium on an o/s I had assigned X.

Macrium thought it was in pe and loaded up the mounted devices from the first windows install it could find. Bit inconvenient.

 

[gregrocker]

You never have probs with OS on another letter than C, Si?

What do you think of Win8?

 

[SIW2]

You never have probs with OS on another letter than C, Si?

No, never - apart from that macrium laugh. Nobody else is going to use X anyway.

Win8?

Don't get me started.

They could have made something good - with a few compromises that everybody would be ok with.

Instead, they have made a hash of it.

Unless the rtm turns out quite different - you never know, MS might have got the message.

 

[AddRAM]

I agree with ya, W8 is Horrible. JMO.

 

[toolman59]

Changed drive letters

Going back some years it was always recommended to install "Oldest OS" first and so on eg. W98, XP and W7. Never had a problem with this and all my data and backup partitions looked exactly the same in each OS without drive letter adjustments. It was only when I changed computers at the end of last year, which allowed me to boot from the Windows DVD that I saw a completely different result from a booted install .
Some day I may get bitten with my method, then I will be back here reviewing these posts.
Thanks again everyone.

toolmant9