I've noticed that when I run XP text setup (to reinstall said OS, natch), it always, ALWAYS modifies the drive letters for my partitions, switching them around when I bloody don't want it to. I doubt my motherboard BIOS provides a "make letters sticky"-like option or something like that.

There MUST be a solution - this occurrence is ruddy well peeing me off...

I'm not 100% sure about this, so someone please correct me if im wrong, but your drive letters go in alphabetical order from where they lay on your IDE Channel. Also, Hard drives are usually given drive letters before CDROMs and other ide devices.

For example, say you have 2 HDD's and 2 CDRoms in this order:
Primary Master: 1 HDD - C:\
Primary Slave: 1 HDD - D:\
Secondary Master: 1 CD-ROM - E:\
Secondary Slave: 1 CD-ROM F:\

Now say you partitianed C:\ into two partitans. It would move the drive letters down one.
Primary Master: 1 HDD - 2 Partitians - C:\ & D:\
Primary Slave: 1 HDD - E:\
etc.

Hope thats helpful.