I've installed a new hard drive which I want to be primary. Can I simply go into Disk Manager and change the drive letters and switch the SATA cables. Or, is there some other consideration, like placing the jumpers on the hard drives to "cable assign". I want to continue to use the older drive as a secondary hard drive. I am running Windows 7 Pro 64 bit on a Dell Optiplex 330.

It is typical to have the primary drive connected to Port 0 on the motherboard. Create a complete pc backup (system image) to an external drive of the current installation. Switch the hard drive connections in the pc. Leave the old drive disconnected. Boot from the installation dvd and select repair options. Then select a pc restore. Point it to the external hard drive where you stored the image. Takes 1 ~ 2hours, depending. Now reboot the system without the dvd. You should have the same pc on the new drive. Next you can shutdown and reconnect the old drive. Reboot and use disk management to delete any partitions, create new partition(s) and format. Now you have a fresh storage drive.

Thank you for the suggestion...I have however, already installed Win 7 pro on the new drive and it is up and working, I'm using it to write this...when I boot I can choose which HD to boot from, the previous version of Win 7 on the older drive (Home Premium) or the new drive (Pro). So, essentially, I am running a dual boot unit at the moment. Now I just want to make the new drive "C", and the older one "D", then reformat "D" and use it as a storage medium. I just don't want to do something from which I cannot recover.Timic13

Hi, Thanks for posting in Microsoft TechNet Forum. The fact is that you cannot change the drive letter of the system volume or boot volume. Change, add, or remove a drive letter Alex Zhao TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Now I just want to make the new drive "C", and the older one "D", then reformat "D" and use it as a storage medium. I just don't want to do something from which I cannot recover. Timic13 Also, when you are dual booting, the current OS will be shown as the logical"C" drive. As Alex mentioned, you can't make "Pro" the hardware C drive. You can lable the volumes to Home (C:) Pro (D:) to keep staright. Your recovery partition and boot files are most likely on the Home premium drive. Therefore, you can't lose that drive without starting over. So, BCEdit won't help, either. The only way is to back-up your Home Premuim, data, copy, Windows Easy Transfer file, complete pc backup and start over as I mentioned previously. I suggest all methods for redundancy.

Thank you to all of you who have tried to provide some guidance. Unfortunately, the confusion continues. If I cannot use the new drive as the primary "C" drive, how does one ever replace the original drive? When I set the new drive up, I did so with using it as the primary drive in mind. When the set up disk for the new drive "readied" the drive for use, I used the option to use it as the boot drive. So, now when I boot up, the computer asks which drive do I want it to boot to, in this case "C" or "D". Recently, I have been using "D" where the "Pro" version is Win 7 resides. If the new "D" drive cannot be made "C", what happens when "C" dies? Yes, it is true that the original "C" drive does have "Dells" recovery partition, but is that really that important? Considering I've never used it, or any other recovery partition, I truly haven't a clue just what it is there to do. It seems as though all the suggestions are about how to replicate the current configuration of the original drive, which is not what I want to do. If anything, I would want to replicate the new drive, but that doesn't make sense either. What I really want to do is make the new drive primary and the original drive secondary.Timic13

What I really want to do is make the new drive primary and the original drive secondary. You cannot with the current configuration. Start over with only the new drive connected to sata port 0 and the old drive disconnected and re-install Windows 7 Pro. Then connect the old drive and use disk management to delete the partitions, create a new partition(s) and format. You will lose any data on both drives.

Hi, I am just writing to check the status of this thread. Do you have any further questions or concerns? Please feel free to let us know. Alex Zhao TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

No...the simple answer is I cannot do what was being attempted. Seems I'll have to start over if I want the new drive I installed to be the "C" drive. TimTimic13

Thank you to you all....would it be possible to use the old drive as the back up drive...fisrt format it and then back up the new drive to it...then disconnect the old drive, connect the new drive to the "0" port, insert the Pro disk, prepare the new drive again, then hook the old drive up to sata 1 and restore to "C" from the old drive...or will this cause a conflict between 2 "C" drives?Timic13

You can use older code (I think). Just do a backup of your current system. Then restore to your current disk (I think) on a partition that is the same size as larger. To do this you bust a repair kit CD to do the back up. Probably you will not have to re-license the disk with microsoft. Renee Not a C officianado

Hi, I am just writing to check the status of this thread. Was the information provided in previous reply helpful to you? Do you have any further questions or concerns? Please feel free to let us know. Alex Zhao TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

I tried the suggestion...made the system image, placed the new drive on SATA 0, and left the older drive disconnected. But when booting from the install dvd did you mean win 7 install or the new drive set up dvd? I tried both...but the computer just would not boot up...I looked at the boot sequence, devices, etc, and did not find anything amiss. Any ideas what may have gone wrong? TimTimic13