Change System Drive Letter

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WHY

I accidentally installed windows with an external drive plugged in and the dumb windows set that as C and the internal hdd as F ?!?!!? I wanted it to be C, just like I had it since I was a kid ..

HOW

1. Make a full system backup of the computer and system state.

2. Log on as an Administrator.

3. Start Regedt32.exe.

4. Go to the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

5. Click MountedDevices.

6. On the Security menu, click Permissions.

7. Verify that Administrators have full control. Change this back when you are finished with these steps.

8. Quit Regedt32.exe, and then start Regedit.exe.

9. Locate the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

10. Find the drive letter you want to change to (new). Look for "\DosDevices\C:".

11. Right-click \DosDevices\C:, and then click Rename.

 Note You must use Regedit instead of Regedt32 to rename this registry key.

12. Rename it to an unused drive letter "\DosDevices\Z:".
This frees up drive letter C.

13. Find the drive letter you want changed. Look for "\DosDevices\D:".

14. Right-click \DosDevices\D:, and then click Rename.

15. Rename it to the appropriate (new) drive letter "\DosDevices\C:".

16. Click the value for \DosDevices\Z:, click Rename, and then name it back to "\DosDevices\D:".

17. Quit Regedit, and then start Regedt32.

18. Change the permissions back to the previous setting for Administrators (this should probably be Read Only).

19. Restart the computer.

LINKS

How to restore the system/boot drive letter in Windows