PCTech Forums

A friend of mine asked me to post this for him, he cant get on the internet.

Here is whats happening.

He just built a pc and drive letters are showing up different than what he is used to. His hardware is as follows.

HD= sata and reading as F:
DVD reading as D:
DVD RW reading as H:
7 in 1 Floppy card reader, floppy reading as A:, Removable disk reading as C: another removable disk reading as G:

His question is: How does he change the HD drive letter to C: again or does he have to live with drive letters the way they are?.

What I had thought was maybe he needs to disconnect all the hardware, remove all the hardware in device manager except the hard drive and reinstall them one at a time. Would he have to reformat his system with only the HD connected and install the devices one at a time?

He is running XP Pro.

From MSKB:
brad

Thank You for your help Brad, once again you have made life a lot simpler.

The thing about 2K/XP is that, unlike Windows 98 or ME where hard drives are assigned letters first, Windows XP and 2000 assign the next available drive letter to each device added, regardless of type.

Troubleshooting Info found here:
http://www.neoseeker.com/Hardware/faqs/kb/15,30.html

Troubleshooting
When you attempt to change an existing drive letter, you receive the following error message:

The volume volume_label drive_letter is currently in use.
If you continue, the new drive letter will be assigned; but you can still use the old drive letter to access the volume until you restart your computer. The old drive letter will not be available for assignment until you restart.

Warning: Changing the drive letter of a volume might cause programs to no longer run.
This error message can occur if there are files in use on the drive, partition, or volume. This includes files that are accessed by other people on the network. To resolve this behavior, use one of the following methods:


Click No when you receive the error message. Quit all programs that are using the files on the volume, and then change the drive letter (right-click the volume, click Change Drive Letter and Paths, and then click Change).
Click Yes to proceed with the drive letter change.
When you attempt to remove an existing drive letter, you receive the following error message:

The volume volume_label drive_letter is currently in use.
If you continue, the drive letter will be freed; however, it will still be available for use until you restart your computer.

Warning: Changing the drive letter of a volume might cause programs to no longer run.
This error message can occur if there are files in use on the drive, partition, or volume. This includes files that are accessed by other people on the network. To resolve this behavior, use one of the following methods:


Click No when you receive the error message. Quit all programs that are using the files on the volume, and then remove the drive letter (right-click the volume, click Change Drive Letter and Paths, and then click Remove).
Click Yes to remove the drive letter the next time you start your computer.

Hope this helps solve your problem.

Cactus

Thanks for the help Cactus, I found on a site that the drive letter cannot be changed on the harddrive because it is hard rooted in the registry. He will just have to live with the HD being F: is all

I would like thank Dan for posting my problem here in this forum. Thanks everyone for the help. Here is my solution. I will reformat in apx 2 months with only the sata hd and dvd plugged in that should sort it out.