I did not see the "very" original post, hence my reply to what
appears to be the first respondent.

I have never ever seen a successful move of a Windows
installation from one drive to another, unless the drive
letter was maintainted (which is, in fact, possible). There
are three reasons:
- The registry is full of references to the original drive letter.
They would have to be fixed, without inadvertently altering
strings that do not relate to drive letters (e.g. altering
"Office:smarttags" to "Officc:smarttags").
- There are a number of binary references in the registry to
the system drive letter. They must be changed too, without
inadvertent corruption.
- There are also some disk files that contain drive letter references.

Now I'm not dogmatic about this. When I see a reasonable number
of independent reports from competent posters that products like
TrueImage can do it reliably then I'll accept it. Your claim is one
solitary report - perhaps there will be more.


"Uncle John" <unclejohn@uselesnospam.com> wrote in message
news:#gbbtz$9FHA.2676@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
> Pegasus
> Is the original post, which I do not see, talking about changing drives or
> drive letters?
> Of course it is easy simple to move System from Windows Drive "D" to "C"
> provided the user remembers that Windows does not assign drive letter in
the
> same order as the bios.
>
> Casper XP or Acronis True Image do routinely copy or clone the old drive
C
> to the new drive D. It will boot and Windows will of course call the new
> drive D and call the old drive C but underneath the GUI it knows that what
> it says it what it means, a bit like Alice in Wonderland!
>
> With boot disk switching in the bios it can be tricky, without using
> Explorer, to know which disk has booted unless some prominent new object
it
> placed on the original desktop just before rebooting
>
> --
> Uncle John
> "Pegasus (MVP)" <I.can@fly.com> wrote in message
> news:uJ2ISo99FHA.356@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> > It seems there is some misinformation in this thread. The basic facts
are:
> >
> > a) If WinXP saw the light of the day on drive D: then it must always
> > run off a drive letter D:. The reason is simple: The registry is full
> > of references to drive D:, and if the system drive is C: all of a
> > sudden
> > then you will end up with a very unhappy Windows installation.
> >
> > b) It is possible to run Windows off the very first partition while
still
> > calling it "Drive C:". Unfortunately it is not an easy matter to
> > arrange
> > this, and the probability of a mistake is high, resulting in an
> > unbootable system.
> >
> > To avoid this type of problem in future, use a proper boot loader such
> > as XOSL. It's free. It lets you install any number of OSs on separate
> > partitions, each visible as drive C:.
> >
> > You can resolve your current predicament as follows. It will give you
> > a large boot disk which you can use to store your data, with WinXP
> > still running off drive D:.
> >
> > 1. Install your 160 GByte disk temporarily as the secondary slave disk.
> > 2. Launch WinXP.
> > 3. Partition/format the 160 GByte disk.
> > 4. Mark it as "active".
> > 5. Copy these hidden files to it:
> > c:\ntldr
> > c:\ntdetect.com
> > c:\boot.ini
> > 6. Disconnect the 40 GByte disk.
> > 7. Make the 160 GByte disk the primary master disk.
> > 8. See if you can boot into WinXP.
> > 9. If you can't, use your WinXP CD to boot into the Recovery Console,
> > then issue these commands:
> > fixboot
> > fixmbr
> >
> > This is a safe path to follow, because you keep both existing disks
> > intact.
> >
> >
> > "BlÄckCaT" <BlckCaT@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:5E632732-55FD-49AF-BD54-4E3B12E4276A@microsoft.com...
> >> Hello Bonobo,
> >>
> >> All that you want to do is possible, there are threads in these forums
> >> for
> >> doing a repair install of Xp as well as how to go about swapping hard
> > drives
> >> with Xp already installed.
> >>
> >> Do a search on "Repair Install Xp" as well as swapping harddrives with
> >> Xp
> >> already loaded on it ( I've gone through it a few months ago ) all
> >> went
> >> well the forums here are great....
> >>
> >> Cheers and good luck, you'll have no problems doing what you have
> >> planned.
> >>
> >> "Bonobo" wrote:
> >>
> >> > Have somewhat of a problem and not quite sure how to go about solving
> >> > it
> > and
> >> > remain legal.
> >> >
> >> > Current system is:
> >> > C:\ = Western Digital 40GB (Win98SE) - Going bad
> >> > D:\ = Western Digital 80GB (XP Pro) - Used the most
> >> >
> >> > Current configuration is dual-booted. Very seldom do I use the Win98
> > and
> >> > have copied and save most of the files I'd want to keep. Both disk
are
> > FAT32.
> >> >
> >> > What I would like to wind up with in the end is:
> >> > C:\ = Western Digital 160GB (With copied system from D: above) NEW
> > Drive
> >> > D:\ = Western Digital 80GB (Used for additional storage after
> > everthing
> >> > has been copied to the NEW C: and verified working correctly and old
OS
> >> > deleted).
> >> >
> >> > This would then net the original C:\ (WD 40GB) gone.
> >> >
> >> > I've read in various post that one possible solution to the above is
to
> > use
> >> > the Drive manufacturer's copy utility to make the move (if there is
> > one).
> >> > Assuming that one exist and it works, then my question becomes:
> >> >
> >> > How will I get the Registry to know that programs now exist on C:
> >> > rather
> >> > than D:, and are there any other problems I might have to worry
> >> > about.??
> >> >
> >> > I'm sure this has been asked numerous of times, but I've looked and
> >> > have
> > not
> >> > found an answer that really makes me comfortable with undertaking the
> > task.
> >> > It's not a matter of will the C: die, but when; and I'd like to make
> >> > the
> > move
> >> > before it does.
> >> >
> >> > Thanks for any assistance!
> >
> >
>
>