Can EasyBCD help change boot drive letter on Windows 7?

felciano

felciano

New Member
Hi --

I just installed a new SSD as Drive F: in a brand new Dell machine and would like it to be the boot drive. The Dell currently boots Windows 7 from drive C:. I installed Windows 7 on the F: drive and can choose which OS to boot to at start up. I would now like to make the SSD the C: drive, but can't do it using the native OS management software.

Can someone tell me whether EasyBCD can let me do this? I've downloaded it and run it, and it looks like the Advanced Settings let you set the drive letter for the volumes, but I don't see an option to use C: for this SSD drive. However, there is an option to set the drive letter to BOOT -- is that what I want?

Thanks,

Ramon

Addendum:

BTW, I've only just done the fresh Windows 7 install on the SSD, so if the actual solution involves reformatting that F: drive and reinstalling Windows 7 with some other settings, that works too.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Ramon
 
Last edited:
Once Windows has installed as x:\, it's set in stone. (thousands of registry entries referencing the drive, e.g. the complete driver-set locations).
There are apps which will clone an OS and change the letter (everywhere it occurs), but if you try it manually, you'll just break it.
If you want an OS to be C:\, don't run setup from another booted OS.
It will detect the existing C:\ and make sure the new OS is something else.
Disconnect your existing OS, boot the DVD and do a clean install of W7 to the SSD.
It will be C:\ and when you reconnect the HDD it will see that as the next available unused letter.
If you boot the old HDD it will also be C:\ and will see the SSD as the next unused letter.
(disk letters are not physically attached to the partition in the way volume labels are (part of the partition table), they're just virtual labels in the mind (registry) of the running OS.
You can boot either of the W7s as default by modifying the BIOS boot sequence, and if you want a dual-boot menu, just add a second entry to the controlling system's BCD, pointing it to the drive letter that the running system uses to name the other one.
 
Ramon

I can tell you something really simple that works flawlessly in windowsXP I've done it many times and the computers with changed drives have run flawlessly for years after. I have not tried it in windows 7 but My gues is it would work the same. Since you say you are willing to do a new install of windows 7 then There is not much top lose, if it fails, just do your reinstall.

To start, when you are booted into your SD drive windows system make sure there are no other drives set to C:drive. If there are you have to give that drive a new drive letter using the windows "Drive Management" tool. Then open regedit and browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices, find the key named DosDevices\F: and rename it to DosDevices\C: Then close regedit and reboot imediately. That's it. When you reboot it'll be C: drive
 
That works if WIndows was C: , accidentally got changed (cloning e.g.), and you're correcting the problem.
If won't work if you've installed Windows as X: and just decide you'd like it to be something else. The reasons were already given in a previous post.
 
Yes. That appears to be the case Terry. The scenario you state above is the situation in which I did it in the past.

I just now tested on a windopws 7 machine which was installed as C: and I changed it to F:. It booted up allright but when I logged on all I got was a black screen saying:
Windows 7
Build 7600
This copy of Windows is not genuine
 
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