Dual Boot -- Want different drive mapping

I want to add Vista, dual boot, to my existing system.

I have my drive partitioned into three parts: C; for Windows XP Pro, D: for my data and E: onto which I have installed Vista Business. When I boot Vista I really want that D: to remain as D:. Some of my applications have drive letters encoded in their config files. But Vista insists that the XP Pro partition be called D:.

I am looking for a way to convince Vista to identify that partition as something other than D:?

Would it matter if I put Vista on a totally separate drive? I have a second drive that I could create space on.

 

In Vista you should be able reassign the drive letters with the Disk Management tool "Control Panel\Administrative Tools\Computer Management\Storage\Disk Management" and then right click on the drive letter and select "Change Drive Letters and Paths..."

You will first need to reassign the XP partition to some other unused drive letter to free up the D: drive letter and then reassign your data partition to D:.

If Vista refused to allow you to change these drive letters in Disk Management you can still swap the letters manually by changing them in the MountedDevices key in the system registry.

Regards,
John Hensley
www.resqware.com

 

I asked because Vista said it could not reassign the drive letters. In looking around for other solutions, I found the right way to do this. From the running XP Pro, autorun the Vista DVD. Then setup preserves the drive mappings. C: remains XP Pro. D: stays put. E: (the empty partition) contains Vista.

Now comes the fun part -- finding and installing all the software I use.