HP Tools not Drive Letter Changeable

[FuseMP]

Hi,

I just opened up a new ProBook 470 and am doing my standard installation routine. Unfortunately for legacy reasons our company network drive is as low as F:  and so it is usually the case that I have to go through disk management and change the drive letter of the CD Drive or sometimes a partition or in the past HP Tools in order to clear that drive letter for the company network drive. However, on this machine I suddenly do not have the option to do that, I have the option on other drives to change their letters, but not on the HP Tools drive which is hogging the only letter that I actually need.

Does anyone know something i can do to kick HP Tools off this drive letter? I have to be able to assign F to the company drive. Perfectly happy to go through a system restore or anything else that might help if there's a way to tell it to bypass F in the process.

Thanks

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

@FuseMP

Hello;

Allow me to welcome you to the HP forums!

You should be able to do this OUTSIDE of Windows with no problems -- but for that, you will need a bootable windows partitioning utility -- and this is one:  http://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/partition-magic-boot-cd.html

I use this all the time, so I know it works.

Once you have this, you have a choice of media to create:
1) If you can boot from CD, download and install ImgBurn and use the Write Image to Disk option to create a bootable CD.
2) If you can boot from USB, download and install RUFUS and use the option to create a bootable USB stick from the ISO file.

Boot your PC with the media you created. You should now be able to do partition changes without problems.

Good Luck

[mdklassen]

> You should now be able to do partition changes without problems.

You referred to interesting software, but the author of the question does not want to physically change any of the partitions, using any software.

Instead, I understand that the author wants to change, within Windows, the logical drive-letter assignments for the existing partitions and mapping of network-shares.  The Windows "Disk Management" tool is the correct tool to use to change those assignments, but the author reports that he/she has tried it, but has not been able to successfully do it.

I am suggesting that "Disk Management" may work, if the reassignments are done in two "phases":

* reassign some partitions to "temporary" drive-letters, e.g., 'M:' or 'N:' or 'P:', then reboot the computer;

* reassign those "temporary" drive-letters to become the "final" arrangement.

Awaiting feedback from the author, please.

If possible, use the Windows "Snipping Tool" to capture an image of what "Disk Management" is displaying, and include that image in the reply.

[WAWood]

@mdklassen

Once again, you're "correcting" me for something I did NOT say!  Where did I say "physically changing the partitions"?

To the OP, I specifically mentioned using the Minitool utility because it works OUTSIDE of Windows, and will allow you to do things that Disk Management often will not.

When you boot from that tool, simply right-click on the HP_TOOLS partition and select the "Change letter" option.  That will allow you to change the Drive Letter assigned to that partition.

Good Luck

[FuseMP]

Thanks for the suggestion. As I originally said, in Disk Management it would not let me change the HP Tools drive letter at all, so I couldnt just reassign them around, it was completely locked down as F and only F; right clicking where you would normally get the "change" option just wasn't there for that drive (although was for others).

Your suggestion though set me down the right path and I was able to achieve what I needed to in DOS using the "diskpart" function and then reassigning its drive letter there; DOS apparently wasnt as hung up on it remaining F as windows.

But that did the trick 🙂 it needed to be done outside of Windows

[mdklassen]

@WAWOOD ...

You're being disingenuous.

> Once again, you're "correcting" me for something I did NOT say!  Where did I say "physically changing the partitions"?

You recommended software that physically changes the sizes and/or placement of partitions.  Do you deny that?

> To the OP, I specifically mentioned using the Minitool utility because it works OUTSIDE of Windows, and will allow you to do things that Disk Management often will not.

Correct.  Disk Management can create/delete/resize partitions, excluding the "active" partition -- the 'C:' drive -- while the "stand-alone" software can operate on the 'C:' drive-letter.

> When you boot from that tool, simply right-click on the HP_TOOLS partition and select the "Change letter" option.

>  That will allow you to change the Drive Letter assigned to that partition.

You didn't read what the author wrote in the first posting -- namely that he tried Disk Manager it, and it failed to do what he wanted.

@WAWOOD:  stay "positive" in your comments, and try to help the author, rather than offering "non-working" advice.

Thank you.

[CAD_Man]

Post above mentioned using the DOS "diskpart" tool to accomplish changing stubborn windows drive letter assignments. I thought it would be helpful to find the complete instructions for using the DOS "diskpart" function and reassigning a drive letter with it since my Google search sent me here. Remember if the drive letter you want to use is already taken, reassign a new unused letter to that drive first to free up the drive letter you want to use.

How to do this:

At START type CMD

Right click on the CMD result (DOS Command Prompt) and select RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR

In the DOS window type DISKPART then <enter>

In the DOS DISKPART command type LIST VOLUME <enter>

All the volumes on the computer will be listed with their names and drive letters

In the DOS DISKPART command type SELECT VOLUME X (where X is the number of the volume you want to change the drive letter for) <enter>

You will now see a statement that "Volume X is now the selected volume"

In the DOS DISKPART command type ASSIGN LETTER=Y ( where Y is an unused letter yo want to assign to this volume) <enter>

You will now see a statement that "DISKPART successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point"

In the DOS DISKPART command type EXIT <enter>

At the DOS prompt type EXIT<enter>

Re-start your computer and that's it.

[IvanGeo]

Thanks CAD_Man, this decision helped me.

[theothertim]

Hi CAD_Man. This was definitely an effective approach. Was able to change the RECOVERY from 😧 to R:

My concern though is, will this affect Recovery in the future?

[mdklassen]

> My concern though is, will this affect Recovery in the future?

No.

If you invoke "Recovery" from within Windows, Windows will find the partition.

If you invoke "Recovery" while booting, the boot manager will find the partition.