How do I fix a drive letter issue after doing a startup repair?

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  1. Posts : 9
    Windows 7 Pro 64bit
       #1

    How do I fix a drive letter issue after doing a startup repair?


    Hello,

    I installed a new Samsung 850 EVO mSATA drive the other day and when I restarted it, it reported that a bootfile was missing and so I pulled out my OEM OS disk and did a startup repair from there. It repaired the boot file and I was able to log in, but then it changed the drive letters as you can see in the attachment below.

    As you can see, Disk 0 is now Disk 1 and Disk 1 is now Disk 0 switching the order. Windows also assigned the boot partition the drive letter D: where there was no drive letter for this before.

    Although I can now boot into the system just fine, these drive letter changes are playing havoc with certain programs that I run.

    If I can find out how to change these drive letter settings without breaking the bootfile or damaging a drive, I'd really appreciate it.

    Thank you
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails How do I fix a drive letter issue after doing a startup repair?-dsk_manage.png  
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  2. Posts : 1,363
    Win7 pro x64
       #2

    right click on each drive and select "remove" (to remove letter) or "change drive letter and path" to change letter

    when wanting to just swap two drives you need an interim placeholder, like say if D and C are reversed, you change D to Z, then C to D, then Z to C
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 9
    Windows 7 Pro 64bit
    Thread Starter
       #3

    johnhoh said:
    right click on each drive and select "remove" (to remove letter) or "change drive letter and path" to change letter

    when wanting to just swap two drives you need an interim placeholder, like say if D and C are reversed, you change D to Z, then C to D, then Z to C
    Can I leave the D: blank and have no drive letter assigned for that space?

    And would that switch everything from Disk 1 to Disk 0 and vice-versa?

    ~

    I want D: to have no dive letter

    I want G: to become F:

    I want F: to become D: -in the end
    Last edited by cheaterslick; 24 Feb 2017 at 23:45.
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  4. Posts : 2,774
    Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
       #4

    What is now using drive letter D should have no drive letters assigned to it; you're correct.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 9
    Windows 7 Pro 64bit
    Thread Starter
       #5

    RolandJS said:
    What is now using drive letter D should have no drive letters assigned to it; you're correct.
    My fear is removing the drive letter will cause it to not boot.

    Would that happen?
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  6. Posts : 2,774
    Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
       #6

    cheaterslick said:
    My fear is removing the drive letter will cause it to not boot. Would that happen?
    I'm using Windows 7 also, and on the two computers with that partition -- keeping the partition hidden and not having any assigned drive letter to it -- the computer still posts, boots, and Windows loads every day.
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  7. Posts : 20,583
    Win-7-Pro64bit 7-H-Prem-64bit
       #7

    Hi,
    Personally I would disconnect all disks except for the one with the os on it then do startup repair
    If the drive letter is not removed after startup repair then remove it manually 100mb should not have a drive letter as stated already.

    C should be disk 0 anyway not disk 1.

    Once all is correct then reconnect the other disks one by one and assign whatever drive letter you want to although windows often reassigns drive letter so you seem to already use labels which is good
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  8. Posts : 9
    Windows 7 Pro 64bit
    Thread Starter
       #8

    Well I changed the drive letters and now it won't recognize D:

    Right mouse clicking the Disc 0 square leaves everything in the right-mouse menu greyed out. And it doesn't leave me with any options. What can I do next?
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails How do I fix a drive letter issue after doing a startup repair?-comp_mgr2.png  
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 2,774
    Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
       #9

    What does not recognize what used to be D? A hidden partition only shows up on disk management, not in explorer.exe. I'm doing school stuff, I'm partially distracted.
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  10. Posts : 31,242
    Windows 11 Pro x64 [Latest Release and Release Preview]
       #10

    D: is not showing as it has been converted to a dynamic disk ( windows own version of raid based disk sharing), The major problem now is that however this has happened it has likely deleted all or any data that was on the disk before the conversion. Assuming you have a backup of the contents of the D: drive you should be able to wipe the disk, reset it to a simple disk, reformat to NTFS, and restore your data. If you do not have backup of your data then you will need specialist software to even attempt recovery and the success rate of recovery form this type of error is extremely low
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