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Background

In my experience, Windows 2000 occasionally sets up the drive letters out of order from what we normally expect. In other words they are not set up for example as C: - first partition of master, D: - first partition of slave, E: - second partition of master, F: - second partition of slave, G: - Zip Drive, H: - CD-ROM. The option for reserving drive letters for removable media is also missing from the Device Properties under System Properties where it is located in Windows 98. This can also be done with the following directions.

Warning

If you make changes described in this tip they should be made before installing any software. Some software sets paths in the system registry and changing the drive letters may cause some software to stop working.

If you’ve already installed software and still need to change the drive letters either uninstall and reinstall software that quits working or try a program that can fix the registry to point to the new letter such as DriveMapper which is included with PartitionMagic.

Solution

You must be logged into Windows 2000 as an administrator to do this. Open Administrative Tools from the Control Panel. From Administrative Tools double click Computer Management. Then click on Disk Management under Storage. You should now see a split window on the right. The top is a details style listing of drives and the bottom shows a graphical representation. From either pane right-click on the drive with the letter you’d like to change and choose Change Drive Letter and Path. Click on Edit and pick the new letter. If you need to swap two letters you may have to move one to an unused letter first, then change the second letter and go back to change the first drive letter. All that’s left is to reboot for the changes to take affect and you’re done.

Modified 2004-01-09