i am trying to install Win2000 as M drive with a user dependent virtual drive C: I managed to get the M drive by installing Windows and changing the registry at the Mounted Device from C: to M. After restart, I encountered logging on error (logon/logoff loop). I managed to log in when I install another instance of Windows as C: I would like to seek advise on how I can proceed from the above by deleting the C: partition and then create a user dependent virtual C: drive with the files required for the logon/logoff loop

This will be difficult - perhaps prohibitively so. The reason why is that Windows assigns drive letters based on what drives/partitions are physically present. You can reassign drive letters manually, but this doesn't change the assumption Windows made about the drive letter it was installed to. This is problematic because hundreds of registry entries (among other things) don't get changed when you change the drive letter. This has a tendency to break things, as you discovered. Put simply, you can't easily change the drive letter of a Windows installation. I can think of a couple of ways to possibly accomplish such a drive letter change. But the amount of work involved in doing them is of the "why bother" variety. What are you trying to accomplish by creating a "user dependent virtual drive C:"? Do you just want to give each user his/her own "home" drive perhaps? There is almost certainly another way to do it than the way you propose. Let's talk about that before reinventing the wheel.

Hi jimminy, Yes, exactly. M2 If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

INteresting post. Jimminy's advice is first class but there are simpler ways to accomplish this if you must. I had to provide "seperate" OS's on a shared executive machine and I did it by using a multiple boot manager and installed five instances of W2K then menu renaming and passwording each system so that the machine booted off a different partition for each user so there was no chance of one seeing the other's work. I think the boot manager was a piece of shareware which I purchased but it was a long time ago. Regrds, Bob Mitchell.

Windows 200 will install files needed to boot on the first active partition, which is usually "C:". Win2K will also mount this partition when loaded. Rule #1 Good computers don't go down. Rule #2 There is no such thing as a good computer.

Yep. I'd still like to know what the original poster is really trying to do. Probably something like what Bob Mitchell is talking about. What a mystery!