Need to change a drive letter from outside the OS

UnluckyProf

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Hi, so I've done a whoopsie. I had windows 7 on a SSD drive, assigned C: by windows 7, but it was full so I decided I'd clone it onto a bigger SSD drive using Acronis Disk Director. Went swimmingly I thought, both drives contained the same data. I wasn't too sure what my next step ought to be, whether acronis will have sorted it so that my new SSD now has the orginal SSD's drive letter or not. If it did, it will be mean a simple transition. But you guessed it, it left the drive letters the same, so when I booted up, it loaded from the orginal SSD. I then changed the original SSD drive letter, and used EasyBCD to remove the original boot and create a new one with the new SSD.
Unfortunate now when I boot up Windows 7 I get a Preparing Your Desktop message for a couple of mins, but it's then followed by a screen with a cursor but no desktop icons or taskbar. It also seemed unresponsive to keyboard strokes. Any ideas?
 

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At a glance

Windows 7 x64Q6600 G0GeIL 4GB DDR2BFG 9600GT OC2
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Custom
OS
Windows 7 x64
CPU
Q6600 G0
Motherboard
Asus P5Q Pro
Memory
GeIL 4GB DDR2
Graphics Card(s)
BFG 9600GT OC2
Sound Card
Realtek ALC1200 @ Intel 82801JB ICH10
Monitor(s) Displays
ViewSonic VX2260wm Series [22" LCD] (R2S092523774)
Hard Drives
KINGSTON SSDNow 40GB ATA Device (37 GB, IDE)
KINGSTON SNV425S264GB ATA Device (59 GB, IDE)
SAMSUNG HD103UJ ATA Device (1000 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II)
WDC WD5000AAVS-00ZTB0 ATA Device (465 GB, IDE)
PSU
Scythe KMRK4-P-750A Scythe Kamariki 4 Plug in 750 W ATX23
Mouse
MX Revolution
Boot into safe mode and press CNTRL-ALT-DEL. Select the task manager and select file and run.
Enter explorer.exe. When the explorer opens see what drive letter windows is using as the system disk.
Then select regedit and navigate to HKEY_Local_Machine\System\Mounteddevices.
Look for \DOS\Devices\?: where the ? is the drive letter that the system was using. Change it to C:
First look to see if there is another \DOS\Devices\C:, if there is, change that letter to an unused letter before
changing the system used drive letter to C:

Reboot and you should be all set.
You will also need to reset the system restore because it will have a drive C: that it can't find.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Windows 10 Pro x64, Windows 8.1 Pro x64, Wind...INTEL i9-7920X LGA 206664 GB (4 X 16 GB) G-Skill V Series DDR4 3200 ...EVGA GTX 1060 SC 3 GB
Computer type
PC/Desktop
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Custom Built
OS
Windows 10 Pro x64, Windows 8.1 Pro x64, Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1,
CPU
INTEL i9-7920X LGA 2066
Motherboard
Gigabyte X299-WU8 F3
Memory
64 GB (4 X 16 GB) G-Skill V Series DDR4 3200 Quad Channel
Graphics Card(s)
EVGA GTX 1060 SC 3 GB
Sound Card
Realtek Onboard ALC1220
Monitor(s) Displays
2 x Samsung S27E310
Screen Resolution
1920x1080
Hard Drives
Samsung 2 x 970 EVO Plus 500 GB NVMe
1 x 6TB WD 6003FZBX SATA
1 x 6TB WD 60EFRX SATA
12 x 3TB WD 30EFRX SATA
PSU
Seasonic X-1050
Case
Thermaltake Armor+
Cooling
Corsair H80i V2 Liquid AOI Cooler
Keyboard
Logitech G510s
Mouse
Logitech MX Master 2S
Internet Speed
200 Mb/s
Antivirus
ESET NOD32 13.1
Browser
EDGE (Dev, Canary, Beta), Chrome
Other Info
ASUS RT-AC68U router
Malwarebytes 4.0.4
That's awesome!!! Thanks so much!
Many kudos to you, sir!
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Windows 7 x64Q6600 G0GeIL 4GB DDR2BFG 9600GT OC2
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Custom
OS
Windows 7 x64
CPU
Q6600 G0
Motherboard
Asus P5Q Pro
Memory
GeIL 4GB DDR2
Graphics Card(s)
BFG 9600GT OC2
Sound Card
Realtek ALC1200 @ Intel 82801JB ICH10
Monitor(s) Displays
ViewSonic VX2260wm Series [22" LCD] (R2S092523774)
Hard Drives
KINGSTON SSDNow 40GB ATA Device (37 GB, IDE)
KINGSTON SNV425S264GB ATA Device (59 GB, IDE)
SAMSUNG HD103UJ ATA Device (1000 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II)
WDC WD5000AAVS-00ZTB0 ATA Device (465 GB, IDE)
PSU
Scythe KMRK4-P-750A Scythe Kamariki 4 Plug in 750 W ATX23
Mouse
MX Revolution
You are welcome.

Also thanks for the edit Brink. As always, your tutorials are great.
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Windows 10 Pro x64, Windows 8.1 Pro x64, Wind...INTEL i9-7920X LGA 206664 GB (4 X 16 GB) G-Skill V Series DDR4 3200 ...EVGA GTX 1060 SC 3 GB
Computer type
PC/Desktop
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Custom Built
OS
Windows 10 Pro x64, Windows 8.1 Pro x64, Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1,
CPU
INTEL i9-7920X LGA 2066
Motherboard
Gigabyte X299-WU8 F3
Memory
64 GB (4 X 16 GB) G-Skill V Series DDR4 3200 Quad Channel
Graphics Card(s)
EVGA GTX 1060 SC 3 GB
Sound Card
Realtek Onboard ALC1220
Monitor(s) Displays
2 x Samsung S27E310
Screen Resolution
1920x1080
Hard Drives
Samsung 2 x 970 EVO Plus 500 GB NVMe
1 x 6TB WD 6003FZBX SATA
1 x 6TB WD 60EFRX SATA
12 x 3TB WD 30EFRX SATA
PSU
Seasonic X-1050
Case
Thermaltake Armor+
Cooling
Corsair H80i V2 Liquid AOI Cooler
Keyboard
Logitech G510s
Mouse
Logitech MX Master 2S
Internet Speed
200 Mb/s
Antivirus
ESET NOD32 13.1
Browser
EDGE (Dev, Canary, Beta), Chrome
Other Info
ASUS RT-AC68U router
Malwarebytes 4.0.4
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