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H drive instead of C drive

Posted:
Tue May 22, 2007 4:11 pm
by AlcopopKing
Hi everybody, was hoping someone could help me with this
I had to install windows on a new hard drive, and for some reason when i go to My Computer i have a 'Local drive (H)' instead of 'Local drive (C)'
Have i just got the wrong IDE cable plugged into it or something?
can anyone tell me why this is, and how to fix (change to C) this?
thanks

Posted:
Thu May 24, 2007 5:40 am
by icecube
If it's XP Pro, you would right click on My Computer and left click on Manage. Then on that screen select Disk Managment. You will see drive H. Right click on that and select change drive letter.
This is one of the reasons I always caution people to only have one hard drive hooked up to a system on a new install.
The drive letter puzzles me, was the drive originally an external USB drive?

Posted:
Thu May 24, 2007 5:02 pm
by AlcopopKing
hi icecube, thanks for your reply
I tried changing the drive letter but i get a pop up box saying:
''Windows cannot modify the drive letter of your system volume or boot volume''
In response to your question, the hard drive wasn't an external drive before. It's was brand new on install of Windows.
thanks

Posted:
Thu May 24, 2007 6:33 pm
by icecube
Does the motherboard have 4 SATA drive connections and an IDE connector also?
If you are using the IDE cable hooked up to your hard drive, see if you can disable the SATA part in the Bios.
The drives use indirect addressing so if that's the case, disabling the SATA should snap the first drive to C:
If SATA reserved C D E F and the CD-Rom is G that leaves H as the next available drive. ???

Posted:
Fri May 25, 2007 10:13 am
by AlcopopKing
I don't think have any sata connections, but i have a 4-in-one card reader which i've just noticed took C among 3 others.
I was reading another forum and someone said that he usually unplugs card readers before installing windows then plugs them back in after.
Will i have to do that and install windows again?

Posted:
Fri May 25, 2007 4:10 pm
by icecube
The first drive is like your first born everything is addressed off of that drive. You will need to reinstall to change the drive letter.
Whenever you do a new install disconnect everything thats hooked up to the computer. Install with only one hard drive hooked up.
I can think of a whole page of what can bite you if you skip this warning and this is just one of them.
Even if you did manage to change it to C, if you were ever prompted to insert the install CD, it would be looking for it in a non existent drive.