Cant see my Vista files ( dual boot vista/windows 7)

Ive installed windows 7 onto a separate hard drive, which is named in vista as Drive Z, so that theres no risk of me damaging my main vista files etc.
While windows 7 appears to load OK after selecting it via a dual boot option, i cant see or access anything from the vista disk/partition, as for some reason Windows7 referes to ( vista) Drive Z as Drive C, and Drive C ( the main drive with all the files and folders as well as the main vista OS) doesnt appear to exist to Windows 7.

When i go top the computer management/storage/disk management i can see the main drive ( that vista calls drive C) but with windows 7 the drive has no drive letter.
when i try and rename Windows7 Drive C ( the one vista calls drivez) to drive Z like in vista, i get an error message saying it cant be done.

Is it possible to rename the drive that windows7 sits on, so that the drive with all the files folders etc etc ( as well as vista ) can be seen used and accessed?

Try going into windows Vista and setting the drive letter of the windows 7 drive to see and changing the vista to another drive letter. Windows 7 auto defaults it to drive c. Try that and let us know how it goes?

In vista i can rename the drive with windows7 on to any letter avaialable, when i try and change the C to another drive letter it wont let me as it says "windows canot modify the drive letter of your volume, this may happen if your volume is a system or boot volume or has page files" the same irratating error is present in both vista and windows 7.

I had Vista and Win7 dual booting each from their own partition, and neither would see each other by default. In the computer management section, I assigned letters the following way:

When booting in Vista: VistaDrive: C Win7 Drive: D
When booting in Win7: VistaDrive: D Win7 Drive: C

Seemed to do the trick

Missing hard drives/partitions and optical drives

I had to do the same thing. XP64 instead of Vista, but it was the same reguardless. Assign the drives you are not currently using in each respective operating system. Good Luck.