2 OS's see different drive letters

After a recent rebuild with XP on 2 drives and a 3rd data drive w/ 2 partitions, each OS shows different drive letters. The 1st OS is for everyday stuff and is labeled Main OS. The 2nd is exclusively for ProTools and is labeled DAW OS. The 2 partitions on the large data drive are Main Data and DAW Data. It can be a bit confusing, so I bought DD, thinking I could make changes without reinstalling all my software. Here is what each OS sees:

Main:

Main OS = H
DAW OS = I
DAW Data = J
Main Data = K


DAW:

DAW OS = C
Main OS = D
Daw Data = E
Main Data = F


I'm not sure If I can change Main drive letters to match the DAW drive letters without running into problems. Would it be a matter of redoing desktop shortcuts or much more complicated?

Thanks,

Greg

 

I assume you are dual booting. Since the XP systems were not hidden from each other, I think you'll find it very difficult to change the drive letters at this stage. The best solution is to take care of the drive lettering when doing the installs and making sure to hide the XP systems from each other. That way they are both "C" to themselves and the data partitions can have the same drive letters.

There are all kinds of drive references in INI files, the Registry, etc. that will become invalid if you change drive letters.

In a clean install senario, you would create the partition (primary, active) for the first XP install. Install XP. Then use DD to hide the partition and create the partition (primary, active) for the second XP install. Install XP again making sure to use the newly created partition (XP install will probably see the first hidden partition). This way both XP installs will be "C" and the data partitions will be "D" and "E". To mangage this you would need a boot manager such as OSS that can take care of hiding and unhiding the partitions depending on what XP system you want to boot.

In my experience, I've found that if you use windows install to create the partition and you have any existing partitions (on another drive, for instance), then windows will assign a drive letter to the new partition that is after all other partitions. The easiest way to fix this is to create the partition, then abort the install and restart. That way windows install sees the partition first and will assign it as "C". I made this mistake once and ended up with my main windows drive as "F" instead of "C" even though it was the first partition on the first hard drive.

 

Thanks, that's exactly what I was afraid of.

Would hiding the DAW drive that is already labeled correctly, and then running the repair portion of the xp disc possibly help?

The OS on the drive that starts with "H" was installed first and I should have aborted the installation as soon as it asked me to choose a drive. I was under the (false) impression that I could do that later.

 

Also, the OS are on separate hard drives. Would they still be labeled "C" if install as you suggested in the first place?

I know I should leave "well enough alone" as everything is working well. ProTools does not play nicely with other software and requires some changes to XP, but I have it on an 80GB drive, and it along with XP only takes up about 6GB. I use one partition of the 160GB data drive (DAW Data) for sound files for ProTools. I've realized that I am waisting 70GB of the PT drive and have considered putting them on 2 partitions of the same disc. Afterthoughts! Would it be possible to kill 2 birds with 1 stone by partitioning the DAW drive (already labeled C) with a 10GB partition for DAW XP and a large one for Main XP (D)? Or would I still have the same problems with the clone.

Thanks, I know that's a lot of info!

 

This may make windows bootable, but it wouldn't fix any registry or ini file links to the old drive letter. Ultimately, I don't think it would work.

 

I think that as long as the partition you're installing windows on is the first "unhidden" partition, then it should be assigned as the "C" drive.

Creating another primary partition after the current "C" partition should be possible, as long as it remains hidden from the current "C" partition. You would have to create the new partition and hide it. Then you could boot back into the DAW XP and make sure all the drives are correct. Then boot back to the rescue cd and hide the DAW XP partition and unhide the new partition and make it active. Then install the Main XP into the new partition. If you're using OSS then make sure the settings are correct to hide the "C" partitions from each other.

Also note that if you do it this way, the drive letters for the DAW XP system will not change. If you wanted the data drive letters to be the same in the new Main XP system then you could change them as there would be no links to those drives in a cleanly installed system.