Win 2K drive letter dilemma

[Ed_S]

I've setup my new system to dual-boot 98SE and W2k, with W2k on a separate physical drive.
'98 is on C:, of course. When installed, W2K mapped the NTFS drive to the HIGHEST letter at the time, that being H: - which WAS even above the CD.
Since then, I've partitioned the primary drive and added two more physical drives. So now, the NTFS drive is in the middle of the mess, and I want it at the end so that all other letter designations remain constant between OS's.

Searched the forums & found how to change the letters on other devices, but this does NOT work for the "system" drive.

Is there a simple way within W2K to change the drive letter of the system drive? And if not, is there a way during installation to assign a specific letter?
If so, I'll just wipe it & reinstall, giving it something high like W:

Whatever it takes, but it can't stay this way!!

[Epyon9238]

I have run into the same problem and format and reinstall is the only way to change the drive letter of the system partition. I havent seen a way to assign a drive letter in setup but I may be wrong.

[Jack Hannibal]

Log into Windows 2000 locally (so that you can see the CD-ROM drive) with an account that has administrator rights. Do this by clicking on the check box to the left of the words Workstation Only, filling in the local login information and then click on OK to log in.

Once you are logged in, go to the Start menu under Settings and then select Control Panel.

In the window that appears, titled Control Panel, double-click on the icon titled Administrative Tools.

The window will change to say, Administrative Tools. Double click on the icon labeled Computer Management to open the computer management console.

In the window that appears, titled Computer Management, click on the folder labeled Disk Management, under the item called Storage.

After selecting the folder Disk Management, the right side of the window will change.

Right-click on the box to the right of the words of the disk to be assigned a new drive letter and select the option Change Drive Letter and Path... from the menu that pops up.

In the window that appears, entitled Change Drive Letter and Path for ..., click on the button labeled Edit... to bring up the window to change the drive letter.

highlight the radio button next to 'Assign a drive letter' and select the drive letter that you want it to be from the pull down menu and then click OK

A window labeled Confirm, will now appear informing you that changing the drive letter assignment may cause programs not to run. Click on Yes to continue.

You will now be brought back to the Computer Management window and your disk drive will appear with the new drive letter.

[Ed_S]

Man, I've ranted for years about folks that fail to go back & finish a topic & here I've done it!
***


Thanks for the replies.
And Jack, that was a very well done explanation!! Unfortunately, it wouldn't work for the system drive...

The answer appears to be no, there isn't a simple way. I've reinstalled with more partitions in place and the W2K system disk is now L:
High enough for my needs, although I'd rather go further.
Might use Partition Magic under '98 to create a bunch of logical drives, reinstall W2k, then go back & delete a few!

[storm2k]

acutally, yes, it is very much so possible. the only thing is that between every change to a local disk partition (aka a hard disk partition), you have to reboot your system to see the changes take effect. it's a bit of a tedious pain when you have several partitions to make changes to, but it does work.

[Epyon9238]

Unless Im missing something, I cant see a way to do it.

[Ed_S]

Thanks, Storm - but again - HOW??

Keep in mind that I can successfully change letters on any drive or partition except what W2k is defining as the "system disk" - in other words, the drive or partition which W2k itself is installed on.

<edit-added> Thanks much, Epyon9238! That's it exactly, except on this system W2K is installed to L:

[hifi]

Actually your correct, the core/system drive letter cannot be altered. But a quicker way to edit drive letters is just go to start/run/diskmgmt.msc (this will open the the Disk Management console ) Right-click on any drive, and select Change drive letter and path.
Windows will let you know if the drive letter cannot be changed for some reason.

[hifi]

Here