Swapping data drives, letters and volume labels

[Simon_135]

I've reinstalled my OS onto a new SSD and also have 2 existing HDDs.

One is a 1TB drive (drive letter E & Volume name "Storage") and only contains data (e.g. some images, my music library and music production samples and projects etc.). No actual programs have been installed on it but things like Media Monkey and my music software point to it to find my music library mp3s and sample libraries & projects.

My old system drive is a 2TB HDD that I've now wiped clean (currently drive letter G and Volume name "New Volume") and I want to use that instead of the 1TB Storage drive but keeping all contents and drive letter so the references don't break.

So I'm copying and pasting the whole E: drive contents onto G: and when it's finished I'm hoping I can just change the letter for volume E: to F: and then change G: to E: (also changing "New Volume" to "Storage" and then "Storage" to "Storage Backup").

So I would then have:

SSD (C System Drive
2TB (E "Storage"
1TB (F "Storage Backup"

As there are no actual programs installed on E: (just references to files) should this work OK if nothing is running when I do it?

 

[thx1138v2]

No, it won't work. Drive letters are assigned by startup position, i.e. where Windows finds the SATA drives. You may, however, be able to swap the SATA data ports on the motherboard and accomplish the same thing.

 

[Simon_135]

No, it won't work. Drive letters are assigned by startup position, i.e. where Windows finds the SATA drives. You may, however, be able to swap the SATA data ports on the motherboard and accomplish the same thing.

But in Windows disk management it gives you the options to change the drive letter and the volume name of any drive (although probably not C drive). I haven't reached that step yet but I've read about people doing it. Are you saying that won't work?

 

[RolandJS]

Windows' assignments of drive letters of the partitions found on one or more HDs found during boot/loading can be modified by disk management; and I too recommend leaving the OS partition as C. Drive 0 and Drive 1 are locked in by cable placement. Booting partition remains marked Active; the OS partition remains Primary.

 

[Simon_135]

Well it all seems to have worked correctly so far regardless of the cabling/SATA placement. Both storage HDDs were set as Disk 0 and Disk 1 (due to cabling) but I was still able to change their drive letters and volume names around without any problem. The SSD containing the OS is configured as Disk 2 due to cable placement but that doesn't seem to matter and all seems to be working OK.

 

[RolandJS]

+1 on your ideas, as long as you program Boot Priority and Boot Order(?) the way you want them -- all is well.