Changing HD Drive Letter?

Really need some help on this please.

Its a long story but basically I changed the letter of my HD from F: to M:

My computer will now not boot up and just stops at the Win XP logo.
I can`t get into Safemode, have no bootable MSDOS disk and the Acronis Disk Director Suite software that is bootable, has the option to Change Drive Letter ghosted out.

Does anyone know how I can change my HD drive letter back to F: so that my computer will recognise it?

Thanks.

 

Go to BIOS (the only thing prior to the OS- press F2, or delete, the key is different from pc to pc, but it should be referenced on the manual or on the screen when you turn pc on), and there you have an option to detect the Drive, i guess. Since you changed the letter, the pc is trying to boot from F, not M. This should be automatic, i don't know much about this (i don't mess with the drive letter ), but still the solution should be in BIOS. Either define the leter, or choose to detect automatically.

Anyone care to confirm?

 

Hi

Ive just tried this but I can`t find any option to choose the drive letter.

 

I'm reading about this, and it seems as it isn't related to BIOS. Did you change the letter with "disk managent" inside Windows, or is this Acronis related?

By the way, this is in the wrong forum. If it's related to Acronis, there are the Acronis forums, if it's not, it's probably "Software, Hardware and General Services" forum.
If a Mod. changes this (to the correct forum), you'll most probably get the appropriate attention.

 

I did have it posted in an Acronis forum as part of another query I had.

I`ll copy my post in the software forum.

Thanks for your replies.

 

Re: Changing HD Drive Letter

I think you are right about the reinstall as I cannot get into my operating system to configure regedit etc.

I may have to buy a copy Win XP in order to do a reinstall as I only have the manufactuers recovery disk which isn`t enabling me to reinstall. Is it acceptable for me to buy the OEM version, considering it is much cheaper that the non OEM version, and is it the same as the non OEM version?

Is the difference between the two the fact that the OEM version will not permit me to have any support from Microsoft?

 

Let's hope not because it seems but a simple matter somehow to restore the drive letter to it's former one "BUT" we are dealing with Windows XP here folks and in all my wisdom i have also been victim at the designs of microsoft in much the same way before.

Two items have really caused me grief, one was the same as bf1 there and the only way out Was to do a OverWrite Install which saved my programs, otherwise a reinstall comes complete with Microsoft's Warning it is about to delete "ALL" your programs you installed should you decide to use the same folder to Reinstall, i chose something on the order of C:\XP2007 for my new windows installation and it saved my programs although i had to reset many of them over again to new paths or install them again. Microsoft leaves you no way out in some instances.
The other disgust i've suffered is with the dreaded XP BootLoader which finds it so very convenient to confuse the other drive (Dual Drive) into not booting up from the XP menu for some strange reason. Paragon CD bootloader restored confidence and accessing the other drive that M$ royally screwed up.

I really hope bf1 can get some relief from this because i share the disappointment caused when you want to make what should be a simple small change but Windows refuses to agree with it. Grrr.

 

Have you called the Technical Support of your Computers Manufactuers? thats the way to go with Computers built with Recovery Disks

 

The manufacturers recovery disk is an OEM. It should be able to reinstall (note that you lose the data on the disk).

You can't boot from the CD, or is it that an error occurs?

 

If you want to save your files, etc. maybe try Knoppix Live CD. I never tried it, but i think it could do the job.

You boot from this CD, and access the HD to copy the files to another HD (like an external one), and then reinstall Windows with the OEM CD.

If you had a BartPE, it would be better, but you can't build one i guess.

 

The computer doesnt boot to letters
the letters are assigned by the OS after its booted
the computer \ BIOS boots to a HDD reading an MBR that bootstraps an ntldr which checks a boot.ini which accesses a partition which loads an ntoskrnl

that deals with memory management and loads a diskmgmt driver (and a bunch of other drivers) and assigns letters

the computer is hanging at that point, its actually booted and past the BIOS stage
likely a diskmgmt conflict but letters generally are assigned dynamically,

simplify the configuration
one HDD no optical no USB drives
hopefully that will force diskmgmt to resign drive letters enough to free up the log jam
change what the BIOS sees and it will autoupdate the ESCD (Extended System Configuration Data) \ DMI (Desktop Management Interface) which the OS will read on the next reboot and hopefully change enough to "fix" the issue


(plural used throughout because a dual boot or multiple HDDs with individual installs could be applicable, hiwever a single install will have only one MBR ntldr boot.ini ntoskrnl diskmgmt)

if that fails there are a number of other approaches short of a reinstall