# windows 98, changing hard drive letters?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-98-changing-hard-drive-letters/281343>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 23, 2004, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-98-changing-hard-drive-letters/281343 "2004-12-23T16:50:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![pope\_hentai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@pope\_hentai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pope_hentai)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2004, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-98-changing-hard-drive-letters/281343/1 "2004-12-23T16:50:20Z")

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need to know how to re-assign hard drive letters. just installed a new hard drive and it sees it as drive D: i need it to be drive f: otherwise everything is gonna be a mess program wise…

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**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2004, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-98-changing-hard-drive-letters/281343/2 "2004-12-23T17:54:44Z")

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There are programs that you can run at startup that change drive letters, but for your particular case, there’s a much easier method.

Win98 assigns the active partition on the 2nd HD as “D:”. If you set that partition to “not active”, then it gets a drive letter after all the partitions on the first HD. One program that I know that does this is “Partition Magic.” Note: It will complain that you are supposed to have an active partition set, but it’s only a real problem for the boot drive.

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**Author:** ![Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rex_fenestrarum/32/7265_2.png) [@Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rex_Fenestrarum)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2004, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-98-changing-hard-drive-letters/281343/3 "2004-12-23T19:00:37Z")

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> [@ftg](#):
>
> There are programs that you can run at startup that change drive letters, but for your particular case, there’s a much easier method.
> 
> Win98 assigns the active partition on the 2nd HD as “D:”. If you set that partition to “not active”, then it gets a drive letter after all the partitions on the first HD. One program that I know that does this is “Partition Magic.” Note: It will complain that you are supposed to have an active partition set, but it’s only a real problem for the boot drive.

If he’s gonna use PM, why not just use Drive Mapper to change the drive letter? No need to deal with that whole “active partition” business.