clean install seen as drive 'F:'

One of my Windows XP Pro systems outgrew it's 80 GB Western Digital H/
D, so I installed a 200GB Maxtor. I installed the Maxtor as the
Master drive on the primary IDE, moving the W-D to primary slave and
verified that this is how the BIOS sees them.

I booted with the Windows XP install CD and verified that the insall
saw the drives correctly. I had the installer format the entire
Maxtor drive after which it installed Windows XP Pro.

After rebooting, I opened Windows Explorer to begin copying files from
the old W-D disk to the new Maxtor. This is how I discovered that XP
had booted from the old drive - calling it 'C:' - and has the new
drive designated as 'F'. ! I thought I had messed up somehow, so
immediately shutdown.

Before rebooting, I first entered the BIOS, which still shows the
200GB Maxtor as the primary master and the 80GB W-D as the primary
slave. But when I rebooted, it again booted from the 80GB slave and
show the new drive as 'F'.

I shutdown, disconnected the 80GB W-D and tried to reboot. I was
surprised when it did! It boots up the new install, but still insists
that it's on drive 'F'! I didn't think this was possible.

With the W-D still disconnected, I tried to change the drive letter,
but XP says it can't change the drive letter of a system drive. How
do I force the system to see this drive as 'C:'?

.