How to assign a drive letter in Windows XP

This post describes how to assign, to change, or to remove drive letters on a drive, a partition, or a volume by using the Disk Management snap-in in Microsoft Windows XP. This post provide step by step windows xp support to assign drive letter, change drive letter, remove the drive letter.

The Disk Management snap-in is an administrative tool for managing hard disks and the volumes or partitions that they contain. Use the Disk Management snap-in when you want to add, to change, or to remove drive letters on drives, on partitions, or on volumes on your computer's hard disks, CD-ROM drives, and other removable media devices.

Your computer can use up to 26 drive letters, from A through Z. Use drive letters C through Z for hard disk drives. Drive letters A and B are reserved for floppy disk drives. However, if your computer does not have a floppy disk drive, you can assign these letters to removable drives.

Before you modify drive-letter assignments, note the following items:

• Changing the drive letter of the system volume or the boot volume is not a built-in feature of the Disk Management snap-in.
• MS-DOS-based and Microsoft Windows-based programs refer to specific drive letters for environmental or other variables. If you modify the drive letter, these programs may not function correctly.

How to assign a drive letter
To assign a drive letter to a drive, a partition, or a volume, follow these steps:

1. Log on as Administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.
2. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Performance and Maintenance.

Note If you do not see Performance and Maintenance, go to step 3. Performance and Maintenance appears in Control Panel only if you use Category view. If you use Classic view, Performance and Maintenance does not appear.
3. Click Administrative Tools, double-click Computer Management, and then click Disk Management in the left pane.
4. Right-click the drive, the partition, the logical drive, or the volume that you want to assign a drive letter to, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
5. Click Add.
6. Click Assign the following drive letter if it is not already selected, and then either accept the default drive letter or click the drive letter that you want to use.
7. Click OK.

The drive letter is assigned to the drive, to the partition, or to the volume that you specified, and then that drive letter appears in the appropriate drive, partition, or volume in the Disk Management tool.

How to change a drive letter
To change an existing drive letter on a drive, on a partition, or on a volume, follow these steps:

1. Log on as Administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.
2. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Performance and Maintenance.
3. Click Administrative Tools, double-click Computer Management, and then click Disk Management in the left pane.
4. Right-click the drive, the partition, the logical drive, or the volume that you want to assign a drive letter to, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
5. Click Change.
6. Click Assign the following drive letter if it is not already selected, click the drive letter that you want to use, and then click OK.
7. Click Yes when you are prompted to confirm the drive letter change.

The drive letter of the drive, the partition, or the volume that you specified is changed, and the new drive letter appears in the appropriate drive, partition, or volume in the Disk Management tool.

How to remove a drive letter
To remove an existing drive letter on a drive, on a partition, or on a volume, follow these steps:

1. Log on as Administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.
2. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Performance and Maintenance.
3. Click Administrative Tools, double-click Computer Management, and then click Disk Management in the left pane.
4. Right-click the drive, the partition, the logical drive, or the volume that you want to assign a drive letter to, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
5. Click Remove.
6. Click Yes when you are prompted to confirm the removal.

The drive letter is removed from the drive, from the partition, or from the volume that you specified.

Fix Access Denied Error In Vista

Windows Vista Support

This post technical support for fix Access Denied error occur in Windows Vista. Access is denied while trying to access My Documents folder in Windows Vista

Cause: This behavior occurs because files in the My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos folders in Windows XP are transferred to the following folders in Windows Vista:

? %systemdrive%\Users\user_name\Documents
? %systemdrive%\Users\user_name\Music
? %systemdrive%\Users\user_name\Pictures
? %systemdrive%\Users\user_name\Videos

The My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos folders in Windows Vista are junction points. A junction point is a protected operating system folder that points to another folder. The junction point is an important part of application compatibility and does not contain any data or other files.

When you upgrade Windows XP to Windows Vista, Windows Vista sets the Read permissions of the My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos folders to Deny. Therefore, you cannot access these junction points. However, if you try to access these junction points, you are redirected to the following folders:

?%systemdrive%\Users\user_name\Documents
?%systemdrive%\Users\user_name\Music
?%systemdrive%\Users\user_name\Pictures
?%systemdrive%\Users\user_name\Videos

By default, a junction point has the following settings after you upgrade Windows XP to Windows Vista:

?The attribute of a junction point is hidden.
?The Read permission of a junction point is Deny.

If you change these default settings, the system will become unstable.

Solution: If the My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos links in the Start menu do not point to the Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos folders, you must manually redirect these links to the correct folders. To redirect these links, follow these steps:

1.Click Start, right-click the link, and then click Properties.
2.On the Location tab, replace the wrong target location with the correct target location. For example, to redirect the My Music folder to the Music folder in Windows Vista, enter %systemdrive%\Users\user_name\Music.
3.Click Apply.

In some cases, when you upgrade Windows XP to Windows Vista, the upgrade does not correctly transfer files from the My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos folders in Windows XP to the Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos folders in Windows Vista. If you cannot find these files, search for them in the following hidden folders:

?%systemdrive%\$INPLACE.~TR\Machine \Data\Documents and Settings\user_name\My Documents
?%systemdrive%\$INPLACE.~TR\Machine\Data\Documents and Settings\user_name\My Documents\My Music
?%systemdrive%\$INPLACE.~TR\Machine\Data\Documents and Settings\user_name\My Documents\My Pictures
?%systemdrive%\$INPLACE.~TR\Machine\Data\Documents and Settings\user_name\My Documents\My Videos

To view files in the hidden folders, follow these steps:

1.Open Windows Explorer.
2.On the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
3.Click the View tab.
4.In the Advanced settings list, click Show hidden files and folders under Hidden files and folders, and then click OK.