After a new hard drive installation or maybe just to keep your system organized, you may want to change the drive letter of a hard drive partition, CD or DVD drive in Windows XP. The Computer Management tool makes this a snap.
Note: You cannot modify the drive letter of your main partition on your PC. In a normal Windows XP installation, this is the "C Drive". All other drive letters, including CD and DVD drive letters, can be modified though.
Navigate to the Control Panel in Microsoft Windows by left-clicking on Start, followed by Settings and then choosing Control Panel.
In the Control Panel window, open Administrative Tools.
Note: In Microsoft Windows XP, depending on how your operating system is setup, you may not see the Administrative Tools icon. To correct this, click on the link on the left-hand side of the Control Panel window that says Switch to Classic View.
In the Administrative Tools window, open the Computer Management program.
In the Computer Management window, locate the Disk Management option on the left and left-click on it.
If the Disk Management option is not visible, look under the Storage option by clicking the + next to the word Storage.
On the right-hand side of the screen, locate and right-click on the drive that you wish to change the drive letter of and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths....
In the Change Drive Letter and Paths window, click on the Change... button.
The Change Drive Letter or Path dialog box will appear. Choose the drive letter you wish to assign to this partition.
Click OK.
The Confirm window that appears advises you that "Changing the drive letter of a volume might cause programs to no longer run. Are you sure you want to change this drive letter?".
Note: If you have software installed to this drive, the software may stop functioning after a drive letter change. Nearly all software defaults to the primary drive though, so this is rarely a concern.
If you're sure you want to make this change, click Yes. Depending on the speed of your PC, the change should be nearly instant.
You can now close the Administrative Tools window.
