Dual boot drive letters

5ft24

New Member
Messages
3
Have an issue...
Installed Windows 8 first, then installed Win XP to a second partition on the same disk.
In windows 8, the XP partition is seen as D:
If I boot to XP, XP sees itself as I:
it sees the windows 8 partition as C: and that is what I want, is C: being win 8 and XP being D:
Is there anyway to change the lettering on the XP partition?
Thanks
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro 32 bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
The drive lettering is for you, windows does not look at things by drive letters.

Heres the procedure from Microsoft.com

[h=3]How to change a drive letter[/h]To change an existing drive letter on a drive, on a partition, or on a volume, follow these steps:
  1. Log on as Administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.
  2. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Performance and Maintenance.
  3. Click Administrative Tools, double-click Computer Management, and then click Disk Management in the left pane.
  4. Right-click the drive, the partition, the logical drive, or the volume that you want to assign a drive letter to, and then clickChange Drive Letter and Paths.
  5. Click Change.
  6. Click Assign the following drive letter if it is not already selected, click the drive letter that you want to use, and then click OK.
  7. Click Yes when you are prompted to confirm the drive letter change.
The drive letter of the drive, the partition, or the volume that you specified is changed, and the new drive letter appears in the appropriate drive, partition, or volume in the Disk Management tool.

Reference: How to change drive letter assignments in Windows XP
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 & Windows 7 Dual Boot
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP G60
    CPU
    AMD Turion RM-70 Dual Core 2.0 GHZ
    Memory
    3 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Nvidia GeForce 8200M G
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Mouse
    MS Intellipoint 5 button (love it!)
    Browser
    Chrome and Chromium
    Antivirus
    Avast Free & Malwarebytes
My recommendation, leave it alone. Sounds like XP was I: when installed. Not sure it will take well to being D:. Vista, WIn 7 and 8 are okay as they always make themselves C: when you boot them.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Pro X64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo IdeaCenter K450
    CPU
    Intel Quad Core i7-4770 @ 3.4Ghz
    Motherboard
    Lenovo
    Memory
    16.0GB PC3-12800 DDR3 SDRAM 1600 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel Integrated HD Graphics
    Sound Card
    Realtek HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP h2207
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050@59Hz
    Hard Drives
    250GB Samsung EVO SATA-3 SSD;
    2TB Seagate ST2000DM001 SATA-2;
    1.5TB Seagate ST3150041AS SATA
    PSU
    500W
    Keyboard
    Wired USB
    Mouse
    Wired USB
    Internet Speed
    3GB Up, 30GB Down
    Browser
    SeaMonkey
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender; MBAM Pro
    Other Info
    UEFI/GPT
    PLDS DVD-RW DH16AERSH
The drive lettering is for you, windows does not look at things by drive letters.

Heres the procedure from Microsoft.com

How to change a drive letter

To change an existing drive letter on a drive, on a partition, or on a volume, follow these steps:
  1. Log on as Administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.
  2. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Performance and Maintenance.
  3. Click Administrative Tools, double-click Computer Management, and then click Disk Management in the left pane.
  4. Right-click the drive, the partition, the logical drive, or the volume that you want to assign a drive letter to, and then clickChange Drive Letter and Paths.
  5. Click Change.
  6. Click Assign the following drive letter if it is not already selected, click the drive letter that you want to use, and then click OK.
  7. Click Yes when you are prompted to confirm the drive letter change.
The drive letter of the drive, the partition, or the volume that you specified is changed, and the new drive letter appears in the appropriate drive, partition, or volume in the Disk Management tool.

Reference: How to change drive letter assignments in Windows XP

I know how to change drive letters for NON system disks...
This is to change the letter of the partition XP resides on from I: to D:
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro 32 bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
My recommendation, leave it alone. Sounds like XP was I: when installed. Not sure it will take well to being D:. Vista, WIn 7 and 8 are okay as they always make themselves C: when you boot them.

I just have a few older programs that won't run unless they are on C: or D:. When I did the install, the XP partition was seen as D: by Windows 8... Installed XP, ran Win 8 boot repair a couple times and had both available to boot from... In Windows 8, the partition is still seen as D, but booting to XP, it calls itself I.

Just hoping I could change it without having to uninstall/reinstall everything... And hope it doesn't do the same thing again...
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro 32 bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
I just brought up a laptop with XP still in it, it wouldnt let me change the drive letter...

"Windows cannot modify the drive letter of your system volume or boot volume"

Now years ago when I had similar issues when moving drives, there was a program called Cybermedia Uninstaller, which let you transport programs from one drive to another, it also had the capability to remap registry entries for file locations.

I believe Partition magic also remapped as a utility.

If you choose this route, please backup the entire registry first, or better yet, if you have an available drive, clone your XP drive and remap the clone, leaving your original untouched until you find a solution that works..

Ill see if I can locate drive remappers in the mneantime
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 & Windows 7 Dual Boot
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP G60
    CPU
    AMD Turion RM-70 Dual Core 2.0 GHZ
    Memory
    3 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Nvidia GeForce 8200M G
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Mouse
    MS Intellipoint 5 button (love it!)
    Browser
    Chrome and Chromium
    Antivirus
    Avast Free & Malwarebytes
Disk Management will not change the drive letter of the OS drive. There are some utilities that claim to be able to do this but I would never trust them. Even in theory safely changing an OS drive letter is very problematic.

Partition Magic hasn't been updated for years and is not compatible with any OS newer than XP.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
If you install Win XP first, than install Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8, all OS partitions will seen C; in the boot OS.

Win8-7-XP-000001.PNG
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    ME, XP,Vista,Win7,Win8,Win8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Other Info
    Notebooks x 3

    Desktops x 5

    Towers x 4
Why dual boot XP at all. Run it as a virtual client under Oracle VirtualBox or VMWare.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Pro X64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo IdeaCenter K450
    CPU
    Intel Quad Core i7-4770 @ 3.4Ghz
    Motherboard
    Lenovo
    Memory
    16.0GB PC3-12800 DDR3 SDRAM 1600 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel Integrated HD Graphics
    Sound Card
    Realtek HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP h2207
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050@59Hz
    Hard Drives
    250GB Samsung EVO SATA-3 SSD;
    2TB Seagate ST2000DM001 SATA-2;
    1.5TB Seagate ST3150041AS SATA
    PSU
    500W
    Keyboard
    Wired USB
    Mouse
    Wired USB
    Internet Speed
    3GB Up, 30GB Down
    Browser
    SeaMonkey
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender; MBAM Pro
    Other Info
    UEFI/GPT
    PLDS DVD-RW DH16AERSH
XP sees itself as I: probably because it counted your SD card slots as drives first.

I had this issue a while back, but the letter didnt affect its operation.

If you want to get a lower letter you should disconnect the SD/memory card reader drives first , then install XP, then Win 8

Or you can install XP on another drive after disconnecting the card reader and it should see itself as C:

Then reconnect the card reader.

You will have to use the WIN8 boot repair or easy bcd in order to get the boot manager to see the XP
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 & Windows 7 Dual Boot
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP G60
    CPU
    AMD Turion RM-70 Dual Core 2.0 GHZ
    Memory
    3 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Nvidia GeForce 8200M G
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Mouse
    MS Intellipoint 5 button (love it!)
    Browser
    Chrome and Chromium
    Antivirus
    Avast Free & Malwarebytes
Back
Top