Windows won't boot if SSD drive letter changed

[Riggers]

I have my OS on a Vertext SSD C drive and all my files (mainly photos) were on a 1TB portable USB drive.

To make Lightroom run faster when editing huge numbers of photos I decided to upgrade the 1TB USB to a 960 GB SSD. This went fine until I tried to change the drive letter after completing the copy. My old USB drive was V drive and I wanted my new SSD to now be V drive.

I changed the USB to be W and then the new SSD was changed from D to V. This would ensure my Lightroom catalog plays nicely with all the file references, presets etc.

But when I do this windows won't boot. It just hangs after 'Loading Operating System'. No matter what I do, when the SSD is V drive windows won't boot and if I force it to be any other available letter it boots fine. I even deleted the volume in disk mgmt then used the new partition wizard to create a new one assigning letter V in the process. Still would not boot.

Changing the Lightroom catalog to reference a different drive is a real nightmare and very time consuming so I don't want to give up just yet. Does anyone know how to trick windows into letting me use letter V for this volume?

 

[SIW2]

Have a look in HKLM\SYSTEM\mounted devices and see if V is listed there, if so, delete it.

 

[Riggers]

Right now it's changed to P while I'm copying the data back (no V drive) and there's no V drive listed in there. There's all sorts of other obscure entries though. Here's an extract:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices]
"\\DosDevices\\C:"=hex:b2,da,b2,a1,00,00,50,06,00,00,00,00
"\\??\\Volume{c8d4383c-3117-11e2-8e8e-806e6f6e6963}"=hex:b2,da,b2,a1,00,00,10,\
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"\\??\\Volume{c8d4383d-3117-11e2-8e8e-806e6f6e6963}"=hex:b2,da,b2,a1,00,00,50,\
  06,00,00,00,00
"\\??\\Volume{c8d43846-3117-11e2-8e8e-806e6f6e6963}"=hex:5c,00,3f,00,3f,00,5c,\
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  30,00,61,00,30,00,63,00,39,00,31,00,65,00,66,00,62,00,38,00,62,00,7d,00
"\\??\\Volume{cfed2632-2f24-11e3-bcde-902b34a88091}"=hex:9a,2d,77,ef,00,7e,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00
"\\??\\Volume{cb798780-3cea-11e3-879f-902b34a88091}"=hex:5f,00,3f,00,3f,00,5f,\
  00,55,00,53,00,42,00,53,00,54,00,4f,00,52,00,23,00,44,00,69,00,73,00,6b,00,\
  26,00,56,00,65,00,6e,00,5f,00,47,00,65,00,6e,00,65,00,72,00,69,00,63,00,26,\
  00,50,00,72,00,6f,00,64,00,5f,00,53,00,54,00,4f,00,52,00,41,00,47,00,45,00,\
  5f,00,44,00,45,00,56,00,49,00,43,00,45,00,26,00,52,00,65,00,76,00,5f,00,30,\
  00,35,00,35,00,31,00,23,00,30,00,30,00,30,00,30,00,30,00,30,00,30,00,30,00,\
  30,00,30,00,32,00,32,00,26,00,30,00,23,00,7b,00,35,00,33,00,66,00,35,00,36,\
  00,33,00,30,00,37,00,2d,00,62,00,36,00,62,00,66,00,2d,00,31,00,31,00,64,00,\
  30,00,2d,00,39,00,34,00,66,00,32,00,2d,00,30,00,30,00,61,00,30,00,63,00,39,\
  00,31,00,65,00,66,00,62,00,38,00,62,00,7d,00
"\\DosDevices\\G:"=hex:9a,2d,77,ef,00,7e,00,00,00,00,00,00
"\\??\\Volume{cebf0f47-4543-11e3-933c-806e6f6e6963}"=hex:f3,5b,93,0f,00,00,10,\
  00,00,00,00,00
"\\??\\Volume{cebf0f48-4543-11e3-933c-806e6f6e6963}"=hex:f3,5b,93,0f,00,00,50,\
  06,00,00,00,00
"\\??\\Volume{2e0c450b-4654-11e3-91eb-902b34a88091}"=hex:1b,d3,c8,15,00,00,10,\
  00,00,00,00,00
"\\DosDevices\\W:"=hex:05,5c,06,00,00,00,10,00,00,00,00,00
"\\DosDevices\\P:"=hex:1b,d3,c8,15,00,00,10,00,00,00,00,00

 

[Riggers]

Could those "??" entries have something to do with how Windows is remembering what was connected to the V Drive? I didn't dare trying to delete them in case Windows wouldn't boot.

What seems strange to me is that I can create a brand new partition in Windows using the SSD and V drive but then it fails to boot. I've never heard of anything like that before. I've also updated the firmware on the SSD and the BIOS on the mobo.

 

[Riggers]

Can anyone tell me if it's safe to delete all the data listed under HKLM\SYSTEM\mounted device? I'm hoping this will force my system to start playing nicely and let me assign whatever drive letter I like to my new SSD.

 

[Riggers]

OK I decided to chance my luck and deleted ALL data under mounted devices that did not look like it had anything to do with my C drive. Then I disconnected all portable drives just leaving my 2 SSDs. As expected Windows booted OK and allocated drive D to my new SSD. I changed it to V in disk management then restarted. I had a real good feeling about this..... but no. Still won't boot. It's as though it doesn't like the letter V!

So all I can think now is there must be some other registry keys hanging around that are screwing this up

I hate to be beaten but this one has really got me scratching my head.

 

[rvcjew]

when you installed 7 what disk were in your system at the time since i bet its because windows put your bcd on the other drive since its bigger at the time of install and that means if you remove it from your system you can not boot windows. see this for help Switching my Windows 7 Boot Disk from D to C with BCDBoot rather than BCDEdit - Scott Hanselman for instance if i take out my music hdd which has mine on it my 840 pro will not boot windows since it looks for it. im just to lazy to fix it atm lol. in diskpart it shows my music disk as a system disk as well as my ssd to give you an idea. easy bcd will work too but its not free.

 

[Riggers]

Thanks for trying to help me rvcjew.

I'm not sure I follow but I'll explain how my system was set up.

When it was built there was just a 128GB Vertex SSD in it as the c drive. Then it was handed to me and I added
M: WD 500 GB WD MyBook Portable Drive USB drive (containing just music)
V: WD 1000 GB WD MyBook Portable Drive USB drive (containing just videos and pictures)

Then I simply purchased the 960GB Crucial SSD to be a direct replacement for the V drive. When connected at first it worked fine and was formatted as D drive. All stuff copied on to it, the V drive changed to W (and disconnected) and the SSD changed from D to V. When I restarted windows it wouldn't boot and since then any attempt to make the SSD use drive letter V has failed.

 

[Riggers]

I also know it something to do with this machine since I happen to have another brand new machine with a Vertex SSD as C drive and have been able to attach my Crucial SSD and run it on there as drive V.

On my original machine I also tried to run it as drive M (instead of my USB music drive) to see if I got the same problem but that worked fine. It's just something about drive letter V it does not like. Most peculiar.

 

[rvcjew]

okay i thought you meant you were trying to make it your OS drive, so your just using it for storage? by boot do you mean as in you put it in your system and it does not see it? or are you trying to have it as the drive with the os on it and your trying to boot off it as in from a cold boot? as in are you trying to replace the vertex ssd with it? and is it a M500 ssd btw? im just a little confused if you could clarify. thanks
rvcjew

 

[Riggers]

I'm not trying to do anything with my OS or my C drive. I had a V drive with photos and video, a portable usb 1TB drive. I'm simply upgrading that drive from a usb drive to a crucial m500. perhaps read my first post above.

 

[rvcjew]

Okay you could give this a try then USB Drive Letter Manager - USBDLM sorry for not understanding I read your post but must have memory loss or something lol.

 

[Riggers]

Would that teally help when I no longer have any USB drives, just 2 SSDs? I guess I can give it a try tonight when I get home.

 

[rvcjew]

It's worth a shot you just hot swap it right is not in an encloser?

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
Why not simply change the Disk boot order in the BIOS - ensure your BOOT drive SSD is the first in the boot priority list.

Cheers

jimbo

 

[Riggers]

USB DLM didn't work. I already checked the boot priority in the BIOS and also used F12 during boot up which lets you override the boot priority and select the drive you want to boot from. None of that makes any difference. So long as this SSD uses any letter from D to Z except V then windows will boot. If I give it letter V windows won't boot.

The Crucial SSD is connected to a spare SATA port and I've tried all available ports and it makes no difference. I also have no other USB drives connected when I boot - just the 2 SSDs. Clearly there is a registry setting somewhere other than MountedDevices that's coming in to play here, I just don't know where it is.

 

[rvcjew]

yeah its something to do with the registry for sure now. idk where it would be either though as iv always used mounted devices. EDIT: your old disk is still labeled something besides v atm right? If you detail your disk in diskpart what does it show you, can you screenshot it like below?

 

[Riggers]

My old drive is now using letter W and wasn't connected so I just connected it and ran diskpart. The disks now listed are:
0 = my vertex SSD with OS on C drive
1 = my new crucial ssd currently using P because I can't get it to use V
2 = a portable usb drive with my music on it using letter M
3 = my old portable usb i just plugged in that used to be V and is now W

 

[rvcjew]

Yeah everything looks normal I don't see any reason it should not be able to be assigned is it only for lightroom that it will be used for? Perhaps you can tell light room to use p as it's source. Sorry I can't help you further I guess you can take one last screen shot of your registry and mounted devices but it seems like if it was annoys you'd have seen it based on your original post.

 

[Riggers]

Yeh, I've already resigned myself to having to reconfigure Lightroom. Part of that is easy but another bit is very time consuming (a known issue and feature request Adobe have not responded to).

Here's my mounted devices section. Thanks for your help.