Vostro 200 xp drivers default to C Drive

Welcome to the forums first of all :emotion-5:

I don't know that it can be overcome?

But why on earth do you want to install the OS on a different drive/partition anyway :emotion-18:

As you're finding out, trying to do so complicates matters no end?

The only thing I've ever installed on a separate partition are games, simply because it's possible to play some games after an OS (re-)installation, without having to reinstall them... which is because some games don't install the files they need to run on C:\, nor do they create registry entries.

But I know it's also possible to install applications to a different drive/partition as well. 

You just need to point the application to wherever you want them installed, rather than accepting the default location - which is almost always C:\Program Files\xxxx

But the OS and drivers will always expect to be installed on C:\, and I personally don't know a way around it, because it's not something I've ever considered?

After all that, I haven't been of any help whatsoever :emotion-40: 

But I posted primarily to ask why you want/need to install the OS on a different drive/partition?

As far as I know, the driver installer program is hard coded to unpack the files to c:\dell\drivers\ without a way to change it.  Where it unpacks the drivers will only make a difference is the C drive is not available (for whatever reason).