Changing the C: drive. How to?

Dinarius

I have three HDs on my desktop.

2 x 500Gb and 1 x 250Gb.

Currently, the 250Gb drive is my C: Drive. But, I'd like to make one of the 500Gb drives my C: Drive and then I would use the 250Gb drive as a scratch disk for Photoshop CS3.

How can I make the empty 500Gb drive my C: Drive?

Thanks.

D.

drunk_monk

Have you considered partitioning your C drive so that say 50GB becomes C and then the remaining 200GB becomes D? If so Norton Ghost will be able to do it for you.

sink

1. Open start menu
2. Right click on "my computer" or "computer" if using vista
3. Click "Manage"
4. In the left column under "Storage" select "Disk Management"
5. You should see a list of your storage devices
6. Right Click on any of them and select "Change Drive Letters and Paths..." to change the drive letters.

Jonathan

sink wrote: »

1. Open start menu
2. Right click on "my computer" or "computer" if using vista
3. Click "Manage"
4. In the left column under "Storage" select "Disk Management"
5. You should see a list of your storage devices
6. Right Click on any of them and select "Change Drive Letters and Paths..." to change the drive letters.

I'm pretty sure you cannot do this with your system drive. AFAIK it *is* possible but mircrosoft do not recommend it. It involves registry editing.

drunk_monk

jmccrohan wrote: »

I'm pretty sure you cannot do this with your system drive. AFAIK it *is* possible but mircrosoft do not recommend it. It involves registry editing.

As jmccrohan says It is not possible to change the volume’s drive letter using the Window Disk Management (WDM) snap-in, which would be the preferred method under normal circumstances. It is however possible using the registry, I've tried it twice, one worked the other didn't.

Here the instructions on how to do it using regedit

Serious problems may occur using the method incorrectly. There is no guarantee this will work either.
1. Create an image and backup critical data.
2. Go to the following subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices (HKLM is the root key/hive containing all the systemwide configuration subkeys: HARDWARE (hive file path: volatile hive), SAM (hive file path: \Windows\System32\Config\Sam), SECURITY (hive file path: \Windows\System32\Config\Security), SOFTWARE (hive file path: \Windows\System32\Config\Software), and SYSYTEM (hive file path: \Windows\System32\Config\System). This hive key holds most of the information in the registry because it is the placeholder for two other hive keys that are aliased to its subkeys: SAM and SECURITY).
3. Click on MountedDevices.
4. Right-click on MountedDevices, and click on Permissions and verify that the key has full Administrative control. This can be changed back later.
5. Look for \DosDevices\C: (This is the volume with the drive letter C that is not the system/boot volume).
6. Right-click on \DosDevices\ C:; click on Rename, changing it to a drive letter not in use. The drive letter C is now ready to be reassigned.
7. Find the \DosDevices\ for the system/boot volume that should be C but isn’t. Right-click on \DosDevices\X:, (X, being the system/boot volume drive letter at this time and is for example purposes only), click on Rename, changing it to C. \DosDevices\X: should now be \DosDevices\ C:
8. You can change the volume that was incorrectly C using the method, but it can now be changed using the Windows Disk Management snap-in.


As I've said your better off getting your hands on Norton Ghost and doing it that way.

Col_Loki

Why not just unplug the 250GB Drive, pop the 500GB into SATA 0 (first SATA slot)....format and load windows onto it. It should take the C: letter, plug back in the 250GB drive (into SATA slot 2/3) ....it should pick a different drive letter.

If it does not pick a different drive letter then go into computer management (right click on My Computer -> Manage -> Disk Management) and change it there. Then Format.


[edit] If you mean you want to transfer your windows install over aswell then ignore my post....

Anti

Col_Loki wrote: »

Why not just unplug the 250GB Drive, pop the 500GB into SATA 0 (first SATA slot)....format and load windows onto it. It should take the C: letter, plug back in the 250GB drive (into SATA slot 2/3) ....it should pick a different drive letter.

If it does not pick a different drive letter then go into computer management (right click on My Computer -> Manage -> Disk Management) and change it there. Then Format.

That has worked for me before.

That'll do the job nicely.

Dinarius

OK guys, this is all wayyyyyyyyy beyond me!

How about I do the following:

The 500Gb drive that I am currently using as a scratch disk for Photoshop CS3 is entirely empty.

How about I split it into 50Gb and 450Gb, or thereabouts. 50Gb is tons of scratch disk space for CS3.

Make sense?

If so, how do I do this?

Many thanks.

D.

BrokenArrows

no matter what you do your going to have to reinstall windows.

there is no way to simply change the drive letter without causing serious problems as menutioned above.

Easiest way would just be to open up you computer.
Swap your 500GB with your current 250gb drive and reinstall windows.

Dinarius

Ahah!

I thought that if I was partioning a drive other than the C: drive, I could avoid reinstalling Vista.

Thanks.

D.

Col_Loki

I thought that if I was partioning a drive other than the C: drive, I could avoid reinstalling Vista.

If you just want scratch space and have an empty drive then its really easy to do.

Right click on My Computer -> Manage -> Disk Management

Right click on the drive (500gb), format to the size you want for scratch and give it a drive letter (not C:). After that there will be unpartitioned space, you can assign to another drive letter.

Is that what you want?

ie....

C:\ -> 250GB , Vista
\ -> 50GB , Scratch
E:\ -> 450GB , Storage
F:\ -> 500GB , Storage

(Obviously the actual drive letters make no difference)

Dinarius

That's exactly what I want.

Will give it a go.

Thanks.

D.

Edited:

When I right click on the drive that I want to format, under the dropdown menu "Allocation unit size." I can only choose from, 512, 1024, 2048, 8192, 16k, 32k and 64k. I can't seem to choose, say, 50Gb.

No doubt I'm doing something wrong, but what?

Thanks.

D.

Jonathan

Should look some thing like that.

Once formatted right click on free space and click new partition.

Anti

Thats not the size of the disk thats the alocated unit size you are seeing. Ignore that part.

Dinarius

OK, a wee bit confused here.

I'm using Vista Ultimate 64bit and, when I right click on the volume I want to partition I get the following options:

Open, Explore, Mark Partition as Active, Change Drive Letter and Paths..., Format, Shrink Volume, Delete Volume, Properties and Help.

If I click on Format, the window that opens has Volume Label, File System (NTFS chosen), Allocation unit size (I mentioned these options above), Perform a quick format and Enable file and folder compression.

If I click OK, it just formats the drive.

That's it.

So, what do I do?

Thanks.

D.

Jonathan

jmccrohan wrote: »

Once formatted right click on free space and click new partition.

As i said above..

Anti

Mark as active partition. You know the microsoft kb site has a comprenhensive walkthrough with screenshots if it will make it easier.

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/help/d9a4d35e-efdf-406c-a049-0860180129a71033.mspx

Dinarius

There is no New Simple Volume option that I can see anywhere.

Whether I right click on the volume in the top half of the Computer Management window or the bottom half (where it is called Disk 1) I do not have this choice.

From the MSFT link above....

2. In the Navigation pane, under Storage, click Disk Management.
3. Right-click an unallocated region on your hard disk, and then click New Simple Volume.

Well, the entire disk is now blank, so shouldn't I be able to right click on it and have the New Simple Volume choice?

Thanks.

Denis

apologies if this is screamingly obvious to all of you!

Jonathan

Dinarius wrote: »

There is no New Simple Volume option that I can see anywhere.

Whether I right click on the volume in the top half of the Computer Management window or the bottom half (where it is called Disk 1) I do not have this choice.

From the MSFT link above....

2. In the Navigation pane, under Storage, click Disk Management.
3. Right-click an unallocated region on your hard disk, and then click New Simple Volume.

Well, the entire disk is now blank, so shouldn't I be able to right click on it and have the New Simple Volume choice?

Thanks.

Denis

apologies if this is screamingly obvious to all of you!

Any chance of a screenshot? it makes things much easier. Print screen + paint is the easiest way of making one.

Col_Loki

You can use the Shrink option.
Or you might have to click Delete Logical Drive (which will start it back from scratch so you can format and assign what ever size you want).

Dinarius

Think I may have solved the problem...........

This is a new computer. If my 2 x 500Gb drives (both empty, as I wrote above) were actually a 1Tb drive already partitioned in two, would that be the reason I'm not getting the New Simple Volume option when I right click on either of them?

If so, how can I get round this?

Thanks.

D.

Dinarius

Sorted!

And apologies to all if this was obvious.........

Before "New Simple Volume" became an option on right-clicking, I had to first Delete the volume.

This made it "Unallocated".

Only then was I able to right click on it and choose 'New Simple Volume' twice and create two new partitions, one of 50Gb and the rest given over to the second partition.

Thanks to all.

D.