Question Drive letters swapped after Windows update Srttrail.txt log file (Accessibility help) ?

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Druminfected

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Oct 30, 2015
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Hello Tech heads!

I could sure really use some help right about now. I've been working on this issue all day and haven't gotten any farther and sore from moving around more than I should (I'm disabled and have very limited strength) After I did a windows "update and shutdown" option before going to bed, the next day when I booted my PC up all I got was nothing but BIOS not even a spinning wheel!

I grabbed my Win 10 iso recovery so I can actually have a couple of options to do but none of them worked.
I have one SSD and one HDD drive, but when I look at the log file it says E:windows instead of C:windows for my main drive.
My SSD is a Samsung 970 EVO 250GB

that means Windows Update somehow SWAPPED MY DRIVE LETTERS AROUND?

The E drive of mine should be my HDD drive with all my music production and most files; but it looks like they have swapped for some reason.

I'll include as many pics and info I can give and I greatly appreciate any help anyone can offer me. I will have to have my caregiver help me if I need to take apart my PC, ( I seen removin the CMOS battery was a suggestion but I want that to be my final final option.

Also have tried System Restore and had one Automatic restore point to pick from but it just errored out. ( i did notice the GMT time zone said -800 when I am -600 not sure if that matters)

I checked my E drive Directory and I see it has Windows folder installed there and when I check my C drive Directory I see all my HDD drive with music production files and etc. When I checked the E drive directory though it said that " Volume in drive E has no label." My C drive directory says "Volume in drive C is Storage HDD

I was so desperate I even resorted to buying software that would supposedly help the Srttrail.txt but after I restarted I get the same ol same old. When I looked at the other tools they offered they had a partition manager and when I looked it showed that my C and E drives are "unallocated" right now. I'm wondering if I could perhaps fix it by doing something with the partitions like swapping them around if possible? At least I could move the letters around and eventually get back to the correct C drive for windows of and my E: drive for media.

I apologize is anything is out of order or if I left something out. Please let me know if you need anymore information, I'm running on fumes right now (it's 9:30am) and have been working on this since 6pm, so I have to put in towel for now and get a few hours of rest.

Any help is greatly appreciated, and I will try and repay you anyway I can.



I've tried:
  • unplugging all devices but mouse, keyboard.
  • bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd = total identified windows installations: 0
  • bootrec.exe /fixmbr
  • bootrec.exe /fixboot. = access is denied (is that because it's a SSD?)
  • sfc /scannow = no integrity violations


When I try:
  • chkdsk /
  • chkdsk /r E: it says the NTFS file cannot run disk checking on this volume because it is write protected.
  • Not able to go into Safe Mode.


Things I Haven't tried:
  • messing with the partition drive letters ( I wanted to try swapping them back to their original C drive and E drive states)
  • I've seen a few videos for command prompt commands that involve copying and backing up so I wanted to check about this whole issues about my Drive letters being switched around could effect anything now before I do that.
  • taking out cmos battery and putting it back in
  • check RAM sticks
  • Try and delete SrtTrail.txt file.


https://imgur.com/19m4Lk0
https://imgur.com/cV1LqQs
https://imgur.com/Bnyj1rp
https://imgur.com/Bnyj1rp
 
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It's normal for the drive letters to be switched when viewing from the recovery menu. Drive letters are just what Windows gives the drives, and when viewed from another way (like the recovery menu) the letters are sometimes switched.

I can see that the drive is write protected, because your chkdsk command said so.

Try removing write protection by running the following commands one by one on the CMD in the recovery menu.

diskpart
list disk
sel disk <your SSD's disk number>
attributes disk clear readonly
exit

Be sure to replace the "your SSD's disk number" with the respective number that correlates to your SSD when the list disk command is run.

After exiting, you can try booting into Windows normally.

Somehow the SSD has gone into read-only mode. This could be an indication of a failing SSD, and this is a data protection method (by going to read only mode). I recommend backing up the stuff on it.
 
Last edited:
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Thank you so much for helping I'm going to try this as soon as I get a chance!

I just need to figure out which disk is my SSD. From my screenshots it looks like it is disk 1 since its marked gpt and the other one isn't and the ssd is a 250gb and I only have 2 drives connected.

When I woke up today to power it on though, I didn't even get bios to show up so I hope it didn't get worse.
 
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USAFRet said:
Boot up the system.
Show us a screencap of your Disk Management window.

More questions to follow, based on what your DM window shows.
Click to expand...
Sounds good! I will take a screencap and upload as soon as I can and appreciate the help. I just need to get my caregiver to physically plug in the win10 iso drive so I can try that and bring up the Disk Management window.

That other software I bought has a partition manager If you look at the 2nd picture I uploaded it shows some of the disk management info, but not enough I assume.

The last time I turned on my PC it didn't even power up BIOS so I hope I don't have even more trouble now.
 
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zinkles said:
Did you try running the commands i suggested in my previous post to try and get the drive out of readonly mode?
Click to expand...
Hello Zinkles, no I have not because I wanted to make sure I select the right drive before I do it. It's either disk 1 or 2 and I'm pretty sure it's disk 1, because of the gpt asterisk by it, but was wondering if I would mess anything up if I tried the command on both disk 1 and 2?

I will try this next thank you
 
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USAFRet said:
In that pic, what device are you actually booted from?

Your Disk 1, a 250GB something (970 EVO?) is in ReadOnly status. That looks like it should be the OS drive, but it is not.
Click to expand...
I couldn't get disk management window to open up via command prompt with the windows 10 iso usb boot I had, so unplug that and use the 44dig windows boot genius to open up disk management window through there and booted that UEFI (screenshot below) I could use the run command and open up disk management window.

Am i just showing you wants on the flash drive or not showing you the correct information? Please let me know and I'll rectify that. thanks!
https://imgur.com/HXZGyGt
 
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Druminfected said:
I couldn't get disk management window to open up via command prompt with the windows 10 iso usb boot I had, so unplug that and use the 44dig windows boot genius to open up disk management window through there and booted that UEFI (screenshot below) I could use the run command and open up disk management window.

Am i just showing you wants on the flash drive or not showing you the correct information? Please let me know and I'll rectify that. thanks!
https://imgur.com/HXZGyGt
Click to expand...
That is showing the Windows Boot Manager on the 250GB 970 EVO.
 
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USAFRet said:
That is showing the Windows Boot Manager on the 250GB 970 EVO.
Click to expand...
I see, do you know of what steps I can try next? anything i can do with the partition manager perhaps? I can show you my C or E drive directory if needed or anything else. I also did the command that @zinkles advised I try but had no luck. I've enclosed a screenshot of results. Thank you guys I appreciate the help.

Updated newer list disk info
https://imgur.com/a/nzYnUlr

updated: I just noticed that disk 2 is showing totally different results now compared to the one I posted eariler today.

Earlier photo
https://imgur.com/Bnyj1rp
 
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Druminfected said:
I see, do you know of what steps I can try next? anything i can do with the partition manager perhaps? I can show you my C or E drive directory if needed or anything else. I also did the command that @zinkles advised I try but had no luck. I've enclosed a screenshot of results. Thank you guys I appreciate the help.
https://imgur.com/a/nzYnUlr
Click to expand...
The drive letters are somewhat irrelevant and changeable, depending on what you're booting from.

In the above pic,
Please select boot device:
Windows Boot Manager (970 EVO 250GB)

What Happens if you select OK?
 
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welp.... looks like i'm SOL here.

Going to get another SSD and clone my drive faulty drive and then see if I can fix the srttrail.txt from there since my SDD isn't write protected anymore. It's the only thing I can thing of at this point.
 
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zinkles said:
did you check if it's not read-only? so, the command worked, by still you can't get into the OS?
Click to expand...
Yes, after I tried the command you recommended, I went back and did the
chkdsk /r E: but it still says the NTFS file cannot run disk checking on this volume because it is write protected.

I still can't get to the OS, just BIOS. that last pic I uploaded is that software on flash drive that's letting me get access to gui and my computer right now.

I'm in the process of just cloning unless, you have any more ideas I could try? Thanks again for all the help.
 
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Srttrail.txt log file

almost everytime I see this file name mentioned in an error, the fastest (perhaps not least painful) answer is to clean install.
You might find it is the only thing that will fix it.

do you have an installer? if not
On another PC, download the Windows 10 media creation tool and use it to make a win 10 installer on USB

how to save data/files
Boot from installer
  • on screen after languages, choose repair this pc, not install.
  • choose troubleshoot
  • choose advanced
  • choose command prompt
  • type notepad and press enter
  • in notepad, select file>open
  • Use file explorer to copy any files you need to save to USB or another ssd/ hdd

Once everything copied you want to keep on C drive, unplug all the other drives and reinstall win 10 on C drive. Once it is on desktop, turn off PC and plug the other drives back in.
 
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Colif said:
Srttrail.txt log file

almost everytime I see this file name mentioned in an error, the fastest (perhaps not least painful) answer is to clean install.
You might find it is the only thing that will fix it.

do you have an installer? if not
On another PC, download the Windows 10 media creation tool and use it to make a win 10 installer on USB

how to save data/files
Boot from installer
  • on screen after languages, choose repair this pc, not install.
  • choose troubleshoot
  • choose advanced
  • choose command prompt
  • type notepad and press enter
  • in notepad, select file>open
  • Use file explorer to copy any files you need to save to USB or another ssd/ hdd

Once everything copied you want to keep on C drive, unplug all the other drives and reinstall win 10 on C drive. Once it is on desktop, turn off PC and plug the other drives back in.
Click to expand...
Hello and thanks for the reply.

yes as previously stated I needed the Win 10 creation tool on usb to even get to command prompt to troubleshoot.

Update!:
I did clone the drive and then installed the ssd onto motherboard (ROG G20 so I had to actually remove heatsink from motherboard to get to the SSD) and then did troubleshooting commands to repair.

I actually successfully booted back to normal on windows!!!!!!!!!

Only thing is I have ran into a couple of issues now though.
  1. when I boot normally I will get a BSOD error code: 0xc000000e
  2. when I do F8 select from boot device I see a Duplicated of my SSD drive with Windows OS
  3. When I select the first SSD choice it boots up windows normally
  4. when I select the 2nd SSD duplicate choice I get the BSOD error code: 0xc000000e
  5. when booted up in windows normally, I am not able to shutdown computer with any setting options, I have to hold down powerbutton
  6. I'm also trying to use the unallocated space, but can't expand volume (grayed out)
 
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USAFRet said:
Then something is not right.

A clone is a clone is a clone.
A 100% copy of the original.

It does not add a second entry like that.
Click to expand...
definitely, I'm trying to figure out how this happened.

any options on what I could try and do?

Update: I was able to finally jump through some hoops and get the unallocated space, allocated to main drive now.

Just have the issue where the drive is showing up twice now when booting up and can't shutdown without hard boot.

Anything feedback on anything else I can try is appreciated. Thanks again
 
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have you tried this on new copy?

could try running start up repair and see if it fixes it:
go to settings/Update & security/recovery
under advanced startup, click restart now
this loads windows into a blue menu at start
choose troubleshoot
choose advanced
choose start up repair - this will scan PC and maybe fix this - will ask for logon info

(never seen it help before but one day it might)

Another choice:
Rebuild BCD (Boot Configuration Data): While still in the Windows Setup environment, access the Command Prompt. Run the following commands one by one, pressing Enter after each:

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /scanos
bootrec /rebuildbcd
Click to expand...
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...c000000e/5b9d4638-d89d-48fc-8b9b-c171dd03a966

cloning a windows that reported that error... wow, its on 2 drives now. Anyway, we can see if this fixes it.
 
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Colif said:
have you tried this on new copy?

could try running start up repair and see if it fixes it:
go to settings/Update & security/recovery
under advanced startup, click restart now
this loads windows into a blue menu at start
choose troubleshoot
choose advanced
choose start up repair - this will scan PC and maybe fix this - will ask for logon info

(never seen it help before but one day it might)

Another choice:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...c000000e/5b9d4638-d89d-48fc-8b9b-c171dd03a966

cloning a windows that reported that error... wow, its on 2 drives now. Anyway, we can see if this fixes it.
Click to expand...
I actually had it showing on 7 drives at one point!

Everytime it would created another one, and when i would go into the bios I would see it would make a boot option for everyone it created.

One of those 7 would actually load up my windows fine so after some more commands and using a couple programs in combination it looks like everything is working as it should now!

What a crazy and wild ride after over weeks of troubleshooting i'm glad to have it back.

SOLVED
 
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