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I'm currently using Windows XP on a 3 boot system one drive 3 partitions; I had multi boot working before but had a problem and had to recover my drive; I used some sort of pre boot software that allowed me to select which drive wre issued which letters depending on which OS I booted for example:

  If I booted OS 1 then C: > C: / H: > H: / I: > I:
  If I booted OS 2 then C: > H: / H: > C: / I: > I:
  If I booted OS 3 then C: > I: / H: > H: / I: > C:

I can't for the life of me remember or figure out what I used to accomplish this; I use Acronis Disk director/ OS selector / and Home for backup and multi boot software but scoured through to see if it was theirs with no luck neither on the forum.

So I'm thinking it was a third party but I realy need help with this please I can't use my other Boots until I can get the drive letters fixed thank you so much for your help and advice!

It's out there somewhere I know it exists; I've used it lol!

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What about logging into each OS and using the Disk Management snap-in (diskmgmt.msc) to assign drive letters to the relevant partitions? Each OS will remember its own drive mapping and use that when run. – Synetech Feb 23 '12 at 5:01
I'm not certain that will work will it? Won't the drive letter attach it's self to the drive/partition therefore making the last setting the default? – Iceking007 Feb 23 '12 at 21:14
> Won't the drive letter attach it's self to the drive/partition therefore making the last setting the default? Yes, per-OS. Each copy of Windows will keep its own drive-mapping and when it boots, it will assign the same drive-letters to the volumes that it did last time, independent of what the other copies use. For example, I dual-boot XP and 7. When I boot XP, my 7GB WinXP partition is C: and my 15GB Win7 partition is T: and when booted in 7, it is the other way around. – Synetech Feb 23 '12 at 21:29
Alright I really appreciate it; now will this work if I use Acronis Disk Director also; or would those changes be more "Global" settings rather than "Local" so to speak. – Iceking007 Feb 24 '12 at 3:38
There is no global setting. The partitions themselves have no concept of drive letters nor does the motherboard. Only operating systems conceive of drive partitions in that way and assign them letters (or don’t as the case may be). Assigning drive letters with Acronis will do the same thing as using the Disk Managment snap-in, but you still have to use it to assign the letters in each copy of Windows. – Synetech Feb 24 '12 at 3:47
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Windows keeps an internal map of drive-letters to drive partitions in the registry. Each copy of Windows keeps its own drive-letter assignment map, so all that is required is to boot into each copy of Windows once and assign the drive letters to the partitions as desired. Then on subsequent boots, each copy will use the same drive letters that were previously assigned, independent of the assignments done in other copies of Windows (they do not know about each other’s settings).

You can assign the drive letters with the Disk Management snap-in (diskmgmt.msc) by right-clicking the desired partition and selecting Change Drive Letter and Path….

You can also assign drive letters from the command-prompt with the diskpart utility, allowing for a degree of automation:

> diskpart
> list volume
> select volume <#>
> assign letter=<letter>

In either case, it only requires assigning the letter once in each copy of Windows.

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