Personal computing discussed

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thrtysvn
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Boot Drive Letter

Sat Jan 26, 2013 9:22 pm

Hello, I have a question about changing from a standard hard drive to a new SSD (Samsung 830, 256G). I plan on doing a clean install of Windows 8 on the SSD and I want to keep my current hard drive (Vista / WD Black 640G) as my storage drive. Does the drive name letter I use for the new SSD Boot Drive matter?

Here is what I 'think' I need to do:

1. Remove the old Hard Drive
2. Install new SSD and load windows 8. Call this the (S:). Update Boot Order to boot from this drive.
3. Plug the old hard drive back in as (C:)

What kind of issues will I run into if I install Win8 on the SSD then try and access my data on the old hard drive? Is there anything special I have to do so that I can access the data on the old drive? I really don't want to reformat the old drive, just leave it as is since it has everything saved on it already.


Thanks
 
BIF
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Re: Boot Drive Letter

Sat Jan 26, 2013 9:58 pm

Windows 8 is going to want to run from the C partition. In a multiboot environment, the dormant Windows OS partition will get lettered to something else, but the running system will always want to be C:.

It's best not to mess with that. I figure there are lots of things I have no control over, like the color of the ocean or the sky, so this is just one more thing.
 
just brew it!
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Re: Boot Drive Letter

Sat Jan 26, 2013 10:01 pm

Generally you want the boot drive to be C:. If you do a clean install of Windows 8 onto the new SSD with the old HDD disconnected, the SSD will be C: by default; don't try to change this!

After installation, move the DVD drive out of the way (rename it Z: or something), and reconnect your old HDD (which should become D:).
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thrtysvn
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Re: Boot Drive Letter

Sat Jan 26, 2013 10:54 pm

Ah, I was under the impression that since the current hard drive was listed as the C:...I would have to keep that drive letter association if I wanted to be able to access my current data. Guess I will give this a go then.

Thank you for the reply!
 
SuperSpy
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Re: Boot Drive Letter

Mon Jan 28, 2013 11:32 am

All you really need to do is unplug the old drive. When you plug it back in (after installing on the SSD) Windows will recognize the new drive as D, E, or whatever letter is free after naming all your optical drives. No need to worry about letter management. Even if the old drive has been explicitly set as C (which isn't the default), the OS will just ignore the setting if there's a conflict.
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jihadjoe
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Re: Boot Drive Letter

Wed Jan 30, 2013 1:20 pm

Don't just assume that the new os will grab C:; you'll be a lot safer taking out all other drives while installing the OS.

Years back I made a mistake of leaving an old OS drive in while I did a fresh install of Vista on a new drive.
My new OS install ended up assigning itself E:.
 
Arvald
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Re: Boot Drive Letter

Wed Jan 30, 2013 2:19 pm

Drive letters are not guaranteed to be boot drive is C:

where things break changing after installation is that the registry will have entries pointing at C:\
 
BIF
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Re: Boot Drive Letter

Sat Feb 02, 2013 3:53 pm

The last two posts are spot on.

I once had a multi-boot system with an instance of Windows NT/95/something-or-other that ended up with the boot drive being "R:". It never seemed to cause trouble, but I did have to do mental backflips every day while I ran that environment.

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