Changing Primary Drive Letter Help/Advice

[1110111]

Hello,

I did search the forum and couldn't find an answer to my question. Sorry if this is posted in the wrong section.

I recently bought a 500GB SATA hard drive(J:) to replace my 30GB IDE hard drive(C:) in which the computer boots up from. I used Norton Ghost to copy my C: drive to my J: drive which I was then able to boot the computer from. However, none of the programs will work due to the program paths being associated with the C: drive, not the J: drive. My internet also doesn't work when being booted up using the J: drive, and i'm guessing this is the reason why.

Therefore, my question is, is it possible to swap these drive letters? I have PartitionMagic 8 but I haven't tried it due to being afraid that i'll mess something up.

My only other option is to make a fresh OS installation onto my J: drive, but that means reinstalling every single program onto my computer again, and i'll also lose my current settings which took a while to configure.

Thank you in advance.

 

[peterhuang913]

In PM8, you can right click on the drive>advanced>change drive letter. Try changing C: to something else like D:, then change J: to C:.

 

[1110111]

In PM8, you can right click on the drive>advanced>change drive letter. Try changing C: to something else like D:, then change J: to C:.

Thanks for the reply. I was going to suggest this in my original post, but forgot. Do you think it will work, and will i come across any problems?

 

[KSoD]

If you used Norton Ghost it should have also taken the Drive letter association with it. The stuff posted above by Peter will not work. Since the Drive in question that is being used by the system (J will not allow you to switch it to the C: Drive. It will give you a error saying Drive is being used or something to that effect.

 

[1110111]

If you used Norton Ghost it should have also taken the Drive letter association with it. The stuff posted above by Peter will not work. Since the Drive in question that is being used by the system (J will not allow you to switch it to the C: Drive. It will give you a error saying Drive is being used or something to that effect.

I should have mentioned that I keep all my programs on a separate partition on the C: drive, but these seem to be working okay when booting from the J: drive, apart from an "Audio Config" problem when I loaded up iTunes.

Also, I got this message when windows loaded the desktop - "Generic Host Process for Win32 Services has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.", although I'm not quite sure what it means.

 

[KSoD]

You should try a Windows repair to get rid of that issue. But as for the whole thing with the drive not being recognized. Best bet wil be to use Add/Remove programs and take off those apps and reinstall them. Trying to just change the drive letter will not work.

 

[EricB]

You should try a Windows repair to get rid of that issue. But as for the whole thing with the drive not being recognized. Best bet wil be to use Add/Remove programs and take off those apps and reinstall them. Trying to just change the drive letter will not work.

yeah you should have took the drive out after you copied both partitions over