hi, i have cloned my master HD to my slave and i want to know how to change the windows directory e.g from C:\WINDOWS to E:\WINDOWS because i want to format my C drive does anyone have any ideas? I have the origonal files and the copied ones and i will set the jumpers on each HD later

What version of Windows is this?

sorry, forgot to mention. I am running windows xp home

XP doesnt like moving like that. If you had 95 98 or 98se it would be easy. Maybe Dan or Jephree can help on this.

Just to clarify: " i have cloned my master HD to my slave "

We are talking about 2 hard drives & not 2 partitions: correct?

I am assuming Master= C: & slave=E: ?

You essentially want to use E as you were using C?
And then format C?

Simply switching the drives should accomplish this.

Assuming your cloning went well: E will become C by making it Master.

& the former C will go to E as slave.

Sorry if I missed the point of what you want to do.

If you just want to change the letters: Open Disk Management
Start/Run diskmgmt.msc
Right click in an area off to the right of the drive space
And "Change Drive Letter & Paths..."

Yes jephree, that is correct
"Assuming your cloning went well: E will become C by making it Master." i have actualy copied it to E:/old C drive as i still have files on E and don't want to get mixed up does this make a difference?
and when you say "Simply switching the drives should accomplish this." do you mean switching the letters of the drive or changing the jumpers on the HD around?

Thanks for the reply

when i went on diskmgmt.msc and tried to change C to another leeter, it said: windows cannot modify the drive letter of your system volume or boot volume

"i have actualy copied it to E:/old C drive as i still have files on E and don't want to get mixed up does this make a difference?"

This does make a difference. A simple copy will not place the system files etc in the proper locations on the disk. Boot files and such reside in a specific area of a disk. You would need to perform a clone, which is essentially a sector by sector copy in order to boot from that drive and run windows.

oooh o if i clone my C drive to my E drive, will the computer then boot up using the E drive? if so, is there any free drive cloning software that you can get? i have tried one that i got on a disk and it wouldnt let me change the "clone to drive:" to E

Originally Posted by madmikejt12

oooh o if i clone my C drive to my E drive, will the computer then boot up using the E drive? if so, is there any free drive cloning software that you can get? i have tried one that i got on a disk and it wouldnt let me change the "clone to drive:" to E

Yes! This is what I had thought you did.

If you Clone the current C: drive to the E: drive & then put E where C is E will become C as that is what you have done: put C: on E:.

In most cases the Cloning process is best carried out on seperate IDE cables.

Assuming the current C: is IDE Primary Master; then place the E: drive on IDE Secondary Master (most likely the current location of your CD/DVD drive).

Most Hard Drive manufacturers have these utilities in their setup programs.

I do this with Maxtor drives using MaxBlast.

Here is a list of Utilities per manufacturer but be sure to verify for latest updates:

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

Also there are third party tools on the market & some other ideas here:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=418



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