Shoutbox

i formatted it, just because it was getting really slow, and it kept giving me a windows has made an illegal operation.

so i formatted it, it went well like usual, now the problem that i am having is, that windows has named my hard drive H: instead of the standard C:

how do i rename my hard drive back to C: ? or do i have to re-format my computer again?

thanks

quote:

---

Originally posted by Phillip
Are there any other drives labeled C:/ ..?

Edit: Also do you have more than one hdd..?

Edit again : A nice little guide by Microsoft can be found here.

---

the device that is named C: is one of my built in card readers.

no, you don't.
You can change the drive letters for your drives using the Computer Management MMC (Start > Run > compmgmt.msc). Select the Disk Management option on the left. Right-click on the partition that you want to change, and select "Change drive letters and paths"

HOWEVER, since this is your system drive, I don't think you can change it. The only cause of this problem, as far as I can think of, is that when you re-installed, you didn't write over the old partition. To solve this, when in Disk Management, there is only one partition. If the data isn't important (if you were trying to format once, it probably isn't) right-click on the partitions and delete the extra ones. Get a DOS boot disk, and then use fdisk to delete the remaining one. you can then re-install windows on the drive, and you should the be able to make a partition over the full disk, instead of just part of it.

The drive letter of the system volume can be changed, but it is not a very good idea -- there are paths stored in registry and configuration files that refer to your current drive letter and will all need to be changed.  If you just change the drive letter and don't do anything about that, you will end up with an unusable Windows installation.

I've heard of people fixing that by doing a registry search for the old drive letter (e.g. "H:") and manually changing all instances they could find to the new letter, and having some success.  However, if you just reinstalled Windows and haven't yet done much with it, then it's probably wiser (and less trouble) to just reinstall.

You can avoid needing the DOS boot disk MeEtc suggests -- just boot from the Windows CD and delete all your partitions from there.  When you only have empty space remaining, quit setup (F3) and reboot before you continue with the installation.

I would also recommend that you physically disconnect the card reader during the installation.  If it emulates an IDE device (as some of them do), it could become a problem again.

quote:

---

Originally posted by MeEtc
HOWEVER, since this is your system drive, I don't think you can change it. The only cause of this problem, as far as I can think of, is that when you re-installed, you didn't write over the old partition. To solve this, when in Disk Management, there is only one partition. If the data isn't important (if you were trying to format once, it probably isn't) right-click on the partitions and delete the extra ones. Get a DOS boot disk, and then use fdisk to delete the remaining one. you can then re-install windows on the drive, and you should the be able to make a partition over the full disk, instead of just part of it.

---

lol that must be one of the most complicated and old fashioned ways of moving/resizing/editing partitions It should work though...

I use Partition Magic (the PowerQuest one , before they merged into Symantec ) to do this kind of jobs, but in this case with a fresh install and stuff my advice is to reinstall with the cardreader disconnected.

edit:free Partition Magic "trial"