My hard drive is E: and zip drive is C:

[Righty]

After loading my operating system and other apps oand updating all of them I realized my hard drive is drive E: and my zip drive is C:. Is there any way to safely change this without re-installing everything? I am running Win XP home. I realize if it doesn't change that it may cause problems in the future. Any ideas?

 

[baltman]

I think that once apps are installed it becomes very hard to change the letters. Even though the act of changing them isn't hard, many of the apps installed might not work.

Brian

 

[smah]

This is a very common occurrence when a zip drive is attached when installing XP. To correct this, you'll need to reinstall. See

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304776

 

[JAG14]

Its a very wise idea to follow the information in Smah's KB Article. If at some point in the future you ZIP drive decides to die, then you'll probably find that XP will revert your drive letters and cause you all sorts of hell..

Do it now, before you load more programs, or you may have no hair in 2 years time.

[tt]'Very funny, Scotty... Now Beam down my clothes.'[/tt]

 

[paulrw1]

Actually it really doesn't matter where the OS is loaded. The only concern is that the boot loader is installed in the first 1024 cyclinders or whatever. This is where the bootstrap lives. Other than that, I'd leave the OS where it's at unless it really bugs the heck out of you!.

As far as the zip drive goes, do this:
1) RIGHT click on My Computer
2) Click on Manage.
3) Click on Disk Management
4) You will see a list of all your drives and partitions.
5) Choose your zip drive
6) Right click on it
7) Choose Change Drive letter and Paths
8) Click on the Change button
9) Asign the desired drive letter and you are all set!

 

[Righty]

Thanks I re-installed XP and all the other applications with the ZIP Drive disconnected. ONce XP and some of the applications were re-installed I reconnected the zip drive.

 

[garebo]

I would suggest, though, that you change the drive letter for your zip drive to q or another letter near the end of the alphabet like that.
That way, if it dies, for sure it wont affect any other drives.
Also, if you should install any external usb drives such as a thumb drive or external usb box, windows will assign it the next drive letter in line, prolly f, with hard drive being c, cdrom, burner being d and e. Point is this way you have some control over what drive letter will be assigned.
Computer companies such as PB used to always assign the letter q to their cdrom but that was before cd and dvd burners and other ide items.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[ImpetusEra]

It weirds you out for awhile but it's not a big deal. No real easy way to change the letter and have everything work. So either live with it or format and reinstall everything.

 

[garebo]

Personally i wouldnt leave it like that. Some progs like some adobe progs and others have to install on c: and wont install on other drive letters. I feel you are looking for trouble down the road and you should fix it right now while you have less progs installed as opposed to later.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips