Drive letters are messed up

[WishCow]

Hey

Please help a fellow msfn member out, I got a little confused about boot partitions:

I have bought a new computer, and installed a fresh (nlited) xp on it.

The computer has two sata drives, both having two partitons, I'll include a picture from Partition Magic:

The partiton names are messed up, no clue why, windows displays them fine:

C: Transit

D: Base

E: Pandora

F: Vault

This is how it was before the installation:

C: Base

D: Vault

E: Pandora

F: Transit

In the textmode phase, I have deleted the [base] partiton, recreated it, and installed windows on it.

After the installation was complete, the [base] partition had the drive letter D: assigned to it, and somehow

the [Transit] partiton became C:, the boot partition.

This is pretty much a disaster for me, as I have a lot of application data on the [Transit] partiton, much of them

using absolute paths, so I would have to rewrite every app's path.

What can I do to change the boot partiton to the [base] partiton, so I can reassign a drive letter to the [Transit] partiton?

I have read that there are tools like fixmbr, fixboot, bootcfg, but I have no clue which one I need.

For most of the commands you need to specify an argument in a form like this:

Device0\Disk0\Partiton1\Windows

...or something like that. How can I check which partiton is which on my drives? Partition Magic doesn't seem to have this info.

(or I just can't find it)

So to recap:

My windows installation is on D:, but my boot partition is C:. I would like to have D: as my boot partition, and reassign the letter C: to it.

Also what can I do to avoid this happening on the next install? Do I have to rearrange my partitions or sata cables, or something?

[spacesurfer]

First, before you install windows, you need to disconnect the extra drive so it can't been seen by Windows setup.

Then, after you boot into windows setup, if the wrong partition gets assigned C:\, then you will not be able to install Windows to the partition you want because setup does not allow you to reassign drive letters.

I suggest you copy all data from that extra partition to your second drive, then in windows setup, format whole drive and recreate the partitions. This ensures that your first partition of your first drive gets assigned C:\.

I'm not sure if Partition Magic or other similar third party apps will let you reassign drive letters. If they do, it's worth a shot.

[Siginet]

This is actually a very common mistake. I always tend to remember the drive sizes so I know which drive is what. Or while in windows I go to the properties of my drives and name them accordingly "System" for the drive I want to install to and "Data" for any of my other drives. Txtmode setup still sees these names... so it makes it simple to differentiate them.

As for you getting your data back... you may have a rough time because you have allready overwritten the drive. Which means a lot of your data will be corrupt when recovering them. But I like to use GetDataBackNTFS for my recovering. You will need to make sure you recover any data to a seperate HD though. The less you use the drive that you want to recover from is the best.

Good luck... and I hope you are able to get your most important files back.

[WishCow]

Ah nonono, no data was lost, the correct partition got formatted, but AFTER formatting, setup somehow decided to make another

partition the boot partition (instead of the freshly formatted one, weird)

I have never heard that you should unplug the drives before installing, I have tried it and it worked.

Thank you very much for your answers!

[Ponch]

The partiton names are messed up, no clue why, windows displays them fine

The OS you boot from to use PM has trouble with partitions crossing the 137GB barrier.

[MrCobra]

So to recap:

My windows installation is on D:, but my boot partition is C:. I would like to have D: as my boot partition, and reassign the letter C: to it.

Also what can I do to avoid this happening on the next install? Do I have to rearrange my partitions or sata cables, or something?

No, you cannot reassign D as C and have it work. If there is a tool to accomplish such a thing, I have never seen it.

To avoid this problem in the future...

Have only one primary partition. Create your OS partition the size you need/want and then create an extended partition to cover the rest of the drive and then create logical partitions in that. Do the same with your other drive(s).

[jaclaz]

Just for the record:

1) it is possible, though NOT recommended, NOT easy, possible at the moment manually only, taking a lot of time and prone to errors, to change a drive letter for the "boot" partition

http://www.msfn.org/board/Change-Boot-Driv...art-t90495.html

Kids, don't do this at home

2) the problem of "mixing" drive letters on new installs can be resolved by using the migrate.inf file:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc758337.aspx

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=19663

As in everything in this field, accurate planning before partitioning/installing/adding drives is essential.

jaclaz

[spacesurfer]

I have never heard that you should unplug the drives before installing, I have tried it and it worked.

Yes, I know it works but if you want to ensure drive letters are assigned correctly, you might have to.

As far as the boot files, they will be loaded to you active primary partition. That's ACTIVE, PRIMARY partition. So, before you begin your install, make sure your C: drive is your active and primary partition.