Win Xp installed on D drive like to change to C Drive

Hi is there any way i can change the OS to tell it that its now on the C drive and not the D drive?

I would like to remove the ide C drive and make the D sata drive the C drive but the os wont boot up if i do that at the moment

I would not even attempt it - there are 1000s of pointers in the registry alone that point to the current install location on D drive. Then individual configuration files for many of your installed programs also point to the current locations on D.

There is no command or program that can make all the necessary changes to all the pointers.

In your case, where Windows is on D, the best way to have everything on C drive is to reinstall everything on the new drive.

In the future, should you buy a new drive to replace C drive, you can make an "image" of the old then install on the new when you physically install the drive in the old drive's place. And often, many new drives come with a utilities disk that includes a transfer program - but note, this is to transfer from the old C drive to the new C drive - not D to C.

I recommend you leave it alone. Windows will run fine on D.

See Ask Leo.

thanks i guess i will have to do a fresh install eventually. just did not want to do that takes me 4 hrs to reinstall everything and i do have an image for back up.

Oh well maybe in 3 months or so i will do fresh install

Yeah, and then it can take days to get all the customizations just right.

Understand there is not harm in leaving it the way it is.

Hi smskinner

Yes,you can change the D drive letter to C
I've done this several times.
Before I can give a more detailed answer
It depends on what OS is on C
Do you boot from that drive?
Is it set as the first boot device or second,if CD/DVD drive is first?
What are you planning to do with the (IDE) drive?

Pete.

Whoa there Pete! That is NOT the question - read the opening post again. He said Windows is currently on D drive.

Changing drive letters is easy (I always make my CD Q-drive and my DVD V-drive) - but remapping the registry so all the currently installed programs, including Windows, look to the correct drive for the 1000s of files that make up those programs is a totally different story. Changing the drive letter does NOT change the 1000s of pointers in the registry.

Hi Bill,

Yes,but he didn't say what was on C:\
(That reminds me "Who's on C:\ ) Yes,Who etc

Anyway, I also change my CD- or DVD drive letters,usually to X and Y,
keeping Z for a ram drive.

You're correct about the reg entries,although a lot of them refer to
%system drive% ,so there's no problem there.
The others I correct ,if necessary, with WinDoctor or similar.

I do however recommend to have a rescue CD or XP Live CD prepared
and handy in case of trouble.
On the other hand smskinner may have resigned himself to the fact that he's not going to do it until later.

Pete.

Yes i will do this later on, idea was to make what is now the C drive ide into a usb ide, then the sata drive will become the main drive ie C drive.

It seems silly that the bios still detects ide drives first before sata if other way around i wouldnt have this problem.

i have 6 sata and only 1 ide, so i need the ide for both my dvd re-writers. hence using usb-ide as the backup drive

Well, depending on your BIOS, you can change the boot order - but yes, with some boards, IDE comes first no matter what.

True,but I solved that by using an IDE to SATA (drive) adapter,
so I could use the chosen sata drive as I like.
These days any kind of adapter is available at low cost.
You can even run an SD- or flash memory card on the IDE connector.
Going the other way, your IDE CD/DVD writers can
connect as "SATA" using adapters, freeing up the
motherboard IDE connector to whatever you like

Pete.