XP changes drive letters when moving disks to new system

[slebus]

I have two hard drives, with Win2K on drive 0, partition 0 (i.e. drive C:) and XP on drive 1, partition 0 (installed as drive F:).

When I take those two drives and plug them into a different system, XP wants to letter them differently.

How can I force XP to accept my desired drive-to-partition mapping?

Much thanks!

slebus

[submix8c]

2K must be the first drive, XP must be the second drive. Can't reverse them. There's a nasty, crazy trick that sometimes works but one has to be able boot properly to one of them. Then you have to import the registry for the other, change the values, then export it back.

Also, you haven't quite described exactly what/how you connected them. If you connected them exactly as before, then there should be no change.

Otherwise, it's called Disk Management in the Control Panel...

[slebus]

Thanks for your response.

Actually, I don't want to change drive lettering from what it was on the old system - but XP does it anyway.

I moved my drives with no physical changes (i.e. jumpering, etc.) from an older, dis-similar system where the mapping was:

Drive 0, Part 0 = C:

Drive 0, Part 1 = E:

Drive 1, Part 0 = F:

Drive 1, Part 1 = D:

When the drives are plugged into the new system, XP maps them something like:

Drive 0, Part 0 = C:

Drive 0, Part 1 = D:

Drive 1, Part 0 = E:

Drive 1, Part 1 = F:

I just want the original mapping back. Neither OS will boot completely now (2K BSODs, XP re-boots).

Thanks again, for any help.

slebus

[submix8c]

Start->Settings->Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Computer Management

(I use Classic View, so the route you take will be somewhat different.)

Under the Storage section will be Disk Management; click on it. On the right-hand window, right-click on F and Change Drive Letter to an unused one, and march down the others until they are what you want (same way), then go back and change Z to what you want.

Urggg! "Neither boots"? How can you tell the drive letters are what they are?

Plug in only the original Drive-0 and see what happens (without the original Drive-1).

According to your first post, this would have been the one with Win2K. This bad boy may not boot without the drivers for the "new PC" installed. Seen this before... Drivers for the Motherboard/Video/etc. must be in place if the PC's are that different. In other words, you can't just move a HDD from a VIA-based MOBO to an INTEL-based MOBO without the drivers being in the Install folder(s). And pre-XP was bad for not booting. Probably, you need to boot into Safe Mode on the XP one, ensure that the drivers are available, install them then reboot. In the case of the 2K, a "reinstall over top" may be necesary...

Edited August 23, 2008 by submix8c

[slebus]

The way I see how XP wants to letter the drives in the new system is by booting with the Install CD, going into Repair, and seeing the drive map there. What I observe is consistent with the boot failures.

I did try with just the old drive 0 connected. Same result: 2K BSODs with "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE".

Booting Safe Mode fails identically.

It seems like this process would be desired by a lot of folks, i.e. you want to upgrade your system? Slip out your old drives (these days, could be 1 TB+) and plug them into a faster processor/memory system.

Thanks submix8c for the ideas. One of them is gonna work.

slebus