Destop Not Available (Due to Drive Letter Changing on Windows Reset)

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Jake Fister

Jake Fister

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Jun 4, 2014
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Ok, this has a fairly complicated back story, so here goes. Yesterday I swapped out my graphics card and was playing DOOM, having a great time ripping demons apart, when my computer froze. Awe, that sucks, but I'll just restart it. Did that, and my computer doesn't come back on. Fans and lights turned on, but other than that, there was no sign of life. I looked at my motherboard and there were various warning lights coming on. Different ones each time I restarted the computer. I felt like that was a really bad sign.

After troubleshooting the mobo to no avail (ASUS Sabertooth 990FX) I swapped it out with an old M5A97 LE R2.0 that I thankfully had on hand. Well, my computer would start up, but after it was on for a few seconds to a minute, it would give me the DRIVER IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL error and restart.

Well after a lot of restarts of trying things that didn't really work, it quit booting up at all. Then when I restarted it, it would just stop and say that "Boot configuration data for your PC is missing or contains errors."

Ultimately had to reset windows. This is where my current problem starts. I had my OS installed on an SSD that was like the 4th hard drive I've installed on this computer, so it had the letter G. when windows reset, it assigned it the letter C. I can boot up and everything works, but all my files have the G letter at the start of the path so windows says they're not available.

I've tried changing the drive letter of my hard drive back to G, but it says the parameter is invalid. I've tried changing the path of a few of the files to C, but it won't let me do that either. I'm not sure how to access those files again =( Please help!

AMD FX 4130
M5A97 LE R2.0
ASUS RX 480 4GB 1320Mhz
8 GB Corsair Vengeance 1866Mhz
EVGA 1000W GQ
PNY 128 GB SSD
3 available WD 1 TB HDD (only one plugged in atm)
 
Solution
USAFRet


That G vs C dichotomy exists in far more many places other than the shortcuts.
All your applications are hosed, and I expect significant parts of the OS are as well.

A reinstall is far faster and 100% guaranteed to work, rather than flailing about for a week or two trying to 'fix' this.
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1. Post install, you can't change the OS drive letter. To or from C.
Your reinstall designated it as C, as it should be

This is why the OS drive should 'always' be the C. Windows assumes this will be the case, and any restore/refresh/etc...will make it the C.
And thereby screwing whatever you had in there before.

And which SATA port that drive is connected to has little influence on the OS drive letter.


2. Since you changed motherboards, and had actual issues with the original OS...a full reinstall is indicated.
So, you need to do that.

Disconnect ALL drives except for the one you want the OS on
Install, wiping out ALL existing partitions on it.
 
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That G vs C dichotomy exists in far more many places other than the shortcuts.
All your applications are hosed, and I expect significant parts of the OS are as well.

A reinstall is far faster and 100% guaranteed to work, rather than flailing about for a week or two trying to 'fix' this.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution


And this is the perfect reason for doing that.
No matter what happens with the OS, your critical personal stuff is not touched.

(you should also have an actual backup, but that a discussion for a different time)
 
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And then all your shortcuts are hosed, as well as who knows what else.
The original OS being on the G is what started this whole chain of fail.

Why not start from a stable config?

 
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