liandre Posted August 27, 2008 Share Posted August 27, 2008 Hi allI just built a new pc, installed Windows XP and looked in my computer to find out that it installed on E drive.Atm the only drives on the pc are ...C - Second Hard Drive (SATA)D - DVD Writer (IDE)E - Windows it seems (SATA)Question 1 - Is it ok running windows off a drive letter other than C?Question 2 - Have I put the SATA cables in the wrong order or something?I thought about changing the boot drive letter, however after reading the forums it seems it'll create problems ... so if windows will runhappily on E I'll keep it there. Will just have to get used to the drives being the opposite way around till I reformat in future.Cheers allLia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Witt3439 Posted August 27, 2008 Share Posted August 27, 2008 Hi and welcome to the forum.Windows will run off of "E" drive just like normal. Windows doesn't care which drive letter is associated with it.To keep it from happening the next time you reload Windows, power down and unplug the other SATA drive first, and also check your motherboard manual to be certain that the main hard drive is plugged into the correct port. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Snrub Posted August 27, 2008 Share Posted August 27, 2008 Question 1 - Is it ok running windows off a drive letter other than C?Should be, this is actually a very common scenario for Citrix Server installations that use M: as the boot drive letter - however when multiple disks (not partitions) are involved then it can be a bit trickier.Question 2 - Have I put the SATA cables in the wrong order or something?I would guess that the BIOS enumerated the drives and the one you selected was the second of the 2 it found - sometimes it can help to unplug (or disable in the BIOS) extra hard disk or optical drives (even card readers sometimes) so that there is no chance for another drive letter to be assigned for %systemdrive%.To check if you might run into problems, temporarily disable the other disk in the BIOS (or unplug it) and verify the system boots and Windows reports it is still on E:.One possible issue you might find is that the first disk has the boot loader and is marked active, but the OS is installed on the second disk - if you remove/disable either disk then the system won't boot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liandre Posted August 27, 2008 Author Share Posted August 27, 2008 Great thanks will make a note for next time I reinstall Windows. -Lia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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