Hi, I am running a dual boot system, with windows 2000 and windows 98. I have recently attached a new hard disk. My original setup with one hard disk had a partition as follows: C:Windows98, D:Windows2000, E:DATA, F:CD-Rom, G:CD-Writer.
Now that I have the new hard disk as a primary slave to the first hard disk, the new disk has taken drive D: and pushed the other drives back one letter.
All I want to do is have the new hard disk for data storage and so that partitioning the new drive gives drive letters: M, N, O and P. How can I accomplish this?
I have tried using Partition Magic 4.0's drivemapper but to no avail.
Many thanks
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Here's is what I did with a dual boot WinME/2K that may or may not help.
I have ME on a 20GB partition [one of five] on one hard drive.
Win2K is installed on a second smaller hard drive [D:].
My CD-ROM is permanently assigned as S: for both o/s's
To keep the important drive assignments the same for both o/s's [ME doesn't see the NTFS partition and reassigns the drives] I created a 1.5GB DOS Primary partition on the W2K hard drive & use it for general downloads.
In W2K I have it assigned as R: just to get it out of the way.
In WinME that little partition is seen as D: & all of the other drives retain their same assignments.
W2K had to be installed prior to setting up the little partition as Primary because having the NTFS partition allowed fdisk to ignore W2K and let me set up the little feller as D:
The drives are generally assigned by Win9X as:
1st hdd Primary = C:
2nd hdd Primary = D:
Logical Drives on 1st hdd = next letters
Logical Drives on 2nd hdd = after that
CD's etc = after that.
Sg
Business Accounts
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by: SysExpertPosted on 2002-10-14 at 09:22:09ID: 7333036
If you do Not want the drive letters to change on your old system , then you need to remove all partitions on the new drive, and add a single Extended partition ( no boot partition ), and then add any logical drives within that.
Then the drive letters will start with H.
In win2k you can change the drive letters easily in disk Admin.
In win98 it is more difficult.
install the latest version v1.33 of TweakUi from Microsoft
http://www.microsoft.com/n
See tweakui in the control panel .
There is an option to enable, disable drive letters.
Also :
Assign Drive Letters in win 9x
http://www.v72735.f2s.com/
Solution #2 (use with caution, and only if Solution #1 doesn't work): Change Drive letter
Run the Registry Editor (REGEDIT.EXE).
Open one of the following branches, depending on the type of device you wish to
configure (your system may vary):
For all SCSI devices, and most non-SCSI CD-ROM drives, open
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Enum\ SCSI.
For IDE hard disks, open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Enum\ ESDI.
For standard floppy drives, open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Enum\ FLOP.
Expand the branch of the SCSI device you wish to configure, and click on the key
under that device (if you have two of the same device, there will be two keys here).
Double-click on the string value called UserDriveLetterAssignment (create it if it's
not there by selecting New and then String Value from the Edit menu).
In the box that appears, type the desired drive letter once, in all caps (example:
type NN to configure this drive to use N:).
Next, double-click on the string value called CurrentDriveLetterAssignme
In the box that appears, type the desired drive letter once, in all caps - if this device
is partitioned into more than one logical drive, include all drive letters (example: type
CEFG to configure this drive to use C:, E:, F:, and G:).
Close the registry editor when finished, and restart your computer immediately for
this change to take effect.
Important: neither of these methods will work if the drivers for the device are
loaded in CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT, since Windows 98 will not have control
over these devices. If the devices are supported in Windows 98, you should remove
the old drivers from these files - see Do I still need CONFIG.SYS and
AUTOEXEC.BAT? for more information.
Notable exceptions to the above include SCSI controllers with their own BIOS's (like
Adaptec's 2940), and any devices with non-standard software drivers.
From: LeeTutor Date: 08/10/2001 06:10PM PST
Not sure whether this utility will do what you want, but take a look at it; appears to be free: Drive
Emulator
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More IMPORTANT things to know.
1) If you have more than one partition on your Old drive, then when you add the new one, your drive letters will change.
The new drives first partition will become D:.
The only way to prevent this is to install it with no primary boot partition ( ie, just an extended partition ).
If you are not aware of this, programs looking for specific drive letters will not work because of the changes.
In addition, for speed reasons, you should make the boot disk your fastest drive.
So if the disk comes with software to transfer everything to the new drive, it may be a good idea to use it. and after it works OK, then you should delete the partitions on your old drive, and set it up as an extended partition only. Add some logical drives to it ( Fdisk ), and you are all set. Fast boot disk, and slower backup / data disk.
I hope this helps.
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