I think because a USB CD drive was present during installation
(an easy thing to miss since it was tucked in back of the box),
Windows picked up on it, and therefore decided to make the boot
drive "F"
How can sanity be restored and turn it back to "C?"

---

Request for Question Clarification by aht-ga on 10 Feb 2004 08:01 PST

pcventures-ga:

As you most likely already know, the boot drive letter can be any
letter as far as Windows XP is concerned... however, to us humans,
it's more intuitive that the first 'hard drive letter', ie. C, be the
boot drive, especially if you grew up using MS-DOS and the earlier
versions of Windows!

The process of changing a drive letter (and path) is relatively
simple, but before you do so, you will need to think about the impact.
While Windows XP itself does not use the drive letters to remember
where its own files are, some software written for older operating
systems, and even some poorly written software designed for XP, do
hard-code the drive letter into their registry settings. So, after you
have changed the drive letter, you may find that you will need to
reinstall some of your software.

To change the drive letter, go to the following webpage and follow the
instructions:

Windows XP Common Issues > Changing Drive Letters
http://www.mvps.org/marksxp/WindowsXP/driveltr.php

One of your current drive assignments will be marked 'System'. This is
the partition on your hard drive that contains the initial boot files
used by the computer when it first starts up. Normally, this
assignment is 'C', but in your case it can be something else (possibly
'F').

Please take a look at your computer's settings, and advise what you
see. Which is the 'System' drive, and which is the 'Boot' drive?

Thanks,

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher

In addition to aht-ga's comment..after you change your drive letter,
some of your software would not work due to the change of path with
references to drive letters.

There's a useful software that can solve this kind of problem without
reinstall any software...the software is called "Partition Magic
8.0"...where can you get this? Just simply download this a file
sharing program called "Ares Galaxy". Here's the link:

"http://download.com.com/3000-2166-10174222.html?tag=lst-3-2" 

install that software after you download it. and then search for
"Partition Magic 8.0". The function that you will be using is "Drive
Mapper" under tool tag...

ps. this is the only way you can get Partition Magic for free.
Otherwise, you might have spend $30 (exclude tax) for that software.

doodoo-ga:

Are you actually advising pcventures-ga to pirate this software, in a
public forum? Do you truly think that this is an appropriate thing for
you to be doing?

While your advice regarding Partition Magic is helpful, advising
someone to obtain the software without compensating the developers is
inappropriate even as a comment.

Best regards,

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher