Ive encountered a problem i have never seen before. My old hard drive crashed and i replaced it, reinstalled windows perfectly, but for some reason, this happened. http://s38.photobucket.com/albums/e... Because of this, some drivers will not install, because they default extract to C: however, there is no removable disk. Is there anyway to change my drive to C, and delete this non existent removable disk without reformatting?

Hi, I hate it when I ask a question and the replies are even more questions. So do forgive me. At the time of reinstall was there any external devices ....card reader pen drive ect attached? I cannot see in the picture how the drives are listed but if you have two Cs then I would try the Safely remove hardware option. Log on as The Administrator, go to Control Panel-Administrative Tools, choose Computer management, and go to Disk management. Right click on the "???" drive, and an option to change drive letter and path should appear.

Does the C drive function as expected? There is only one C drive listed. Doubleclicking the picture will enlarge it. I can't say why your only harddrive is listed as a removable drive for sure but it may be explained if it is a SATA harddrive. On many systems SATA drives will be seem as a removable drive. The system I am on now is like that. The safely remove Icon in the tray shows my harddrive as removable. This is because of the possibility of configuring a eSATA drive, which is removable. Look in Device Manager> harddrive> Properties> policies. Are there two choices available there? Opimize for performance is what you should use. This may make the drive appear in the tray.

I suggest that you reinstall and do not have any external devices connected when you do it. Then you will end up with a normal configuration. Having C: as your main drive is not required, but it might prevent complications in the future. It just dawned on me, if you leave things as they are, you 'might' need to have the external disk connected to boot.

This is usually due to a card-reader being connected to the PC when Windows is installed. For some reason when assigning drive letters, priority is given to those before hard drives. Although there is no mention of it in this MS article ( http://www.microsoft.com/learning/b... ). I once reinstalled on a PC where I had a 4-in-1 card reader and the Windows HD was given the letter F! Needless, to say I ended up doing a reinstall with the card reader disconnected. Once Windows is installed you can reconnect the card reader and the Windows drive will stay as C and the card reader will be given the next available drive letter. EDIT: Here is a MSKB article that explains the problem: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896536 Their workaround is to create and delete the primary partition several times during installation. I'd just disconnect the card-reader. Michael J

I found this: Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000, XP users Open My Computer. From My Computer, right-click the drive you wish to rename and click Properties. Within the Properties window, type the new name in the "Label" box and click ok. Note: Microsoft Windows users can also use the above MS-DOS steps to change the name of their drive. Some HELP in posting on Cnet plus free progs and instructions Glad to Help!

I was thinking the same, But have never tried before. I know MS gives this as how to change drive letters http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844 When you try to change an existing drive letter, you receive the following error message: The volume volume_label drive_letter is currently in use. If you continue, the new drive letter will be assigned; but you can still use the old drive letter to access the volume until you restart your computer. The old drive letter will not be available for assignment until you restart. Warning: Changing the drive letter of a volume could cause programs to no longer run.