Win 7 installed on new drive as "E" Can I change?

[Saltgrass]

.[/QUOTE]

Would really like to hear from anyone who tries this.[/QUOTE]

OK you have heard from me....

 

[gregrocker]

The fact there are so many responses means there is some confusion about how this type of stuff works. Since I have been playing with this the last few days, hopefully I have some insight.

To test what I say, boot to Vista and then check the diskmgmt.msc. It should show Drive 0 and C: saying Boot, system..

If you boot to Windows 7, it should show Disk 1 as C: and Boot, system, etc.

You can also do a search for bootmgr.exe (hidden system file) and it will be on Drive 0, or the Vista install, but not on the windows 7 drive. The Boot folder will also be on the Vista Drive but not the Windows 7 drive.

If what I say seems to be correct, you can remove the vista drive(unplug) and then do a startup repair to the Windows 7 drive and all should be oK. It will take two passes for the startup repair to fix the situation.

Would really like to hear from anyone who tries this.

OK you have heard from me....

I read your post with interest several times but didn't read where you had actually done this. It is a great idea.

In fact your last paragraph up top gave me the mistaken impression that you were only proposing it hypothetically.

That is the only reason I asked for someone to let us know if they try it.

So had you tried checking what drive Win7 assumed when you unplugged Vista, before trying Startup Repair?

 

[Saltgrass]

There were so many folks having problems with dual boot situations and since I knew very little about it, I started experimenting. I have learned quite a bit and tried several different senarios, but there are still MANY things I do not know.

I have run startup repair enough times now that I feel fairly comfortable with it.

It is nice to have a spare Win 7 capable computer to play with...

 

[ark1227]

1) boot onto your windows vista
2) go to 'run' or press start
3) type in 'diskmgmt.msc' (no quotes) and press 'yes' for UAC
4) now look for the drive the u have ur windows 7 on
5) right click on it
6) press 'change drive letter and paths...'
7) select the drive of windows 7 again
8) press 'change'
9) select a letter (can't be one that exists)
10) press 'ok'
11) it will ask u to confirm, press 'yes'

+ rep me if i helped in any way

ENJOY!!

 

[solar]

This is the tutorial I followed last time I killed my OS doing this:

How to restore the system/boot drive letter in Windows

Afterward I posted in beta forum asking what I did wrong (twice), and got flamed as the biggest idiot on earth since MS says clearly not to do it except for temporary letter change.

So please excuse if I am still a little scorched from this experience.

lol... such a bad experience... really shame sometimes one can really get morons on the other side of the screen lol ~~

oh... and if saltgrass' solution worked than my method would work too wihtout removing any disk. but active disk is to be handled a bit more carefully

 

[Cyberium]

Just for Info:
I can confirm that Win7 takes automatically over the letter C when it is the only oS left on the rig. Regardless if it was installed 1st, 2nd or...
And any partition that contains system data (i.e.: copy of boot data because yoou saved some app data there...) will be flagged as "active" in Management Console.

Cheers

 

[DeaconFrost]

1) boot onto your windows vista
2) go to 'run' or press start
3) type in 'diskmgmt.msc' (no quotes) and press 'yes' for UAC
4) now look for the drive the u have ur windows 7 on
5) right click on it
6) press 'change drive letter and paths...'
7) select the drive of windows 7 again
8) press 'change'
9) select a letter (can't be one that exists)
10) press 'ok'
11) it will ask u to confirm, press 'yes'

That will change the drive letter in Vista, but not when you boot into Windows 7. That's the issue at hand, is that there's no reliable way to change the system volume's letter. When booting into Vista, the Windows 7 drive isn't considered the system volume.