changing drive letters in win98

[gossamer]

How can I change the drive letters in win98?
I dual boot win98/2000. The setup is as follows:
Drive0
partition1 - win98
partition2 - win2000
partition3 - data

Drive1 - backup

Win98 views the partitions this way:
c drive is win98
d drive is Drive1
e drive is win2000
f drive is data

For reasons I don't want to bore you with, I would like to rearrange those in 98 so that Win2000 is on D and the Data is on E.

Using drive1 for an OS is not an option as it is an old slow hard drive. But works great for storing backups and junk. Likewise I do not want to use it for my primary data storage either.

Thanks in advance for the help.

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The internet? Is that thing still around?

[tjaymadison]

Don't forget The PC Guide. A quick search on "drive and letter" turned up this (http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/part_Letter.htm).

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"When I nod my head, hit it with the hammer."
-- (Moe, holding nail, to Curly, holding hammer)

[gossamer]

Thank You. I often forget that the PC Guide has a wealth of information.

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The internet? Is that thing still around?

[gossamer]

Ok. The document makes sense except the following line:

"don't create a primary partition on any hard disks in the system other than the first one."

In order to create a logical partition you have to have an extended partition, which is a primary partition. Therefor the OS still sees HDD 1 as having a primary partition. Any ideas?

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The internet? Is that thing still around?

[tjaymadison]

Plenty -- (of ideas)! If that line doesn't "make sense" to you, you didn't read well enough, or what you did read you didn't understand well enough. To learn about this stuff, you have to take some initiative. If you had clicked on a very obvious link on that first page, it would have taken you here (http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/struct_Partitions.htm).

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"When I nod my head, hit it with the hammer."
-- (Moe, holding nail, to Curly, holding hammer)

[This message has been edited by tjaymadison (edited 05-01-2001).]

[gossamer]

I had to read that??? I knew I was doing something wrong!! I have 3 primary partitions on HDD 0 and one logical on HDD 1. HDD 1 insists on having the letter D. But this sentence says that should not happen.

"It is essential to realize that the system will first assign a letter to all primary partitions on all hard disks in the system, before it will assign any letters to any logical volumes (in extended partitions) on any hard disk."

If the system assigns letters to primary partitions first, then I have no problems. But apparently the system does not do this.
"don't create a primary partition on any hard disks in the system other than the first one." Remember reading this in the guide? Well that is what I have, and it does not work.(primary partitions on HDD 0 and logical on HDD 1). The logial on HDD 1 is assigned D, when according to this it should be F.

All I'm saying is that what is supposed to happen, is not.

Look at me, I took initiative.

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The internet? Is that thing still around?

[tjaymadison]

From the Guide: -- It is perfectly legal to only create an extended partition on a hard disk, and put all of the (logical) partitions in it. (Emphasis and parenthetical added.)

What is "supposed" to happen, is happenning! You may be reading the stuff, but you're not understanding all of it, so you want to keep disputing it. Your second drive is not set correctly in FDISK to accomplish what you want to do. The entire drive must be set as an extended partition first, with no primary partition, then partitioned into logical drives/volumes. You must have incorrectly made a primary partition on the second drive for your drive letters to be the way they are. You won't be able to do what you want to do without starting over with the second drive, unless you have/get a third-party program like Partition Manager. Otherwise, you will have to re-FDISK and re-format it to change it, which will of course loose everything currently there. Additionally, you may have to re-install any applications that come up with "broken-link" error messages because of drive-letter reassignments. Good luck.


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"When I nod my head, hit it with the hammer."
-- (Moe, holding nail, to Curly, holding hammer)




[This message has been edited by tjaymadison (edited 05-02-2001).]

[tjaymadison]

Sorry! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/redface.gif Got back too late to edit my previous post. I shouldn't have been so harsh -- I don't know your level of experience, and it's sometimes difficult to guesstimate on a forum. But the material that Charles puts in The PC Guide sections has stood the test of time, and has been edited, proofed and re-edited many times, I'm sure, for clarity and correctness. Your answers were there, you were just missing it. We've all done it at one time or another. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif Keep reading and learning. Good Luck!

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"When I nod my head, hit it with the hammer."
-- (Moe, holding nail, to Curly, holding hammer)

[gossamer]

Well I should appologize for some of the sarchasm in my replies, it's just one of those days where I should have stayed home. Sorry. I would say my level of expertise is intermediate. This drive letter thing has never been a concern until now. I'm trying to locate common directories that the same program in 2 OSes can use. I now understand how the system reads partitions, and should be able to fix the drive letters to my liking.
Thanks for your help. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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The internet? Is that thing still around?

[tjaymadison]

Take a look at this (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q282/5/30.asp) from the MSKB. One of the best procedures I've ever found. Its only drawback is that you to have start from scratch, but it does put everything in order, and prevents broken links. If you ever have to do a fresh install, this is definitely the way to do it.

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"When I nod my head, hit it with the hammer."
-- (Moe, holding nail, to Curly, holding hammer)