[SOLVED] Drive Letters Switched [SOLVED]

[techmsgt3855]

OS Windows 10 won't boot and I found that the OS was no longer on drive letter C but on drive letter F; C was now "system". Got to a command prompt, typed "diskpart", then "list volume", found volume 2 was the C "system" and volume 3 was F "windows". Typed "select volume 2", then typed "assign letter=z" which changed volume 2 "system" from C to Z. Then typed "select volume 3", then typed "assign letter=c" which put the OS back to c. Then typed "select volume 2", typed "assign letter=f" which put "system" on drive F. Then typed "list volume" and everything looked right. Typed "exit". Tried to reboot and still didn't work; found that the OS was again on drive letter F and system was on C! Why didn't it stay the way I changed it!

 

[hang-the-9]

This should not just happen on it's own. Put the disk into another computer as a secondary drive and post a screenshot of the disk manager.

 

[techmsgt3855]

This should not just happen on it's own. Put the disk into another computer as a secondary drive and post a screenshot of the disk manager.

I agree, it should not happen on it's own. But I ran a Norton antivirus boot disk that ran for 3-4 hours and didn't find any malware or virus. I gave up and reset Windows and it is fine now. But is there something sacred with the drive letter "C" that Windows won't let you change using command line "assign letter" etc.? I just can't figure out why changing the letter to the correct drive would not work...

 

[hang-the-9]

This should not just happen on it's own. Put the disk into another computer as a secondary drive and post a screenshot of the disk manager.

I agree, it should not happen on it's own. But I ran a Norton antivirus boot disk that ran for 3-4 hours and didn't find any malware or virus. I gave up and reset Windows and it is fine now. But is there something sacred with the drive letter "C" that Windows won't let you change using command line "assign letter" etc.? I just can't figure out why changing the letter to the correct drive would not work...

I doubt a virus would cause this, nothing was done on the system before this happened? You turned off computer it was working, then turned on and it was not? The volume name should not matter, the C drive is correct to be the system drive. It really depends on how your setup was done, what partitions you had on it to begin with.

 

[techmsgt3855]

This should not just happen on it's own. Put the disk into another computer as a secondary drive and post a screenshot of the disk manager.

I agree, it should not happen on it's own. But I ran a Norton antivirus boot disk that ran for 3-4 hours and didn't find any malware or virus. I gave up and reset Windows and it is fine now. But is there something sacred with the drive letter "C" that Windows won't let you change using command line "assign letter" etc.? I just can't figure out why changing the letter to the correct drive would not work...

I doubt a virus would cause this, nothing was done on the system before this happened? You turned off computer it was working, then turned on and it was not? The volume name should not matter, the C drive is correct to be the system drive. It really depends on how your setup was done, what partitions you had on it to begin with.

I think Windows was doing an update when it happened. But I should have said "C" drive was "System Reserved" not system as in Operating System. Windows was now on "F" and so when booting it looked for Windows on "C", didn't find it and wouldn't boot. But my question really is why using a command line I can change F to C but when restarting it went back to F. As I said, before restart it showed I correctly changed Windows to the "C" drive. After restart Windows was back on F.

 

[USAFRet]

However it happened initially, you can't just swap the C drive letter around via the commandline.

 

[techmsgt3855]

However it happened initially, you can't just swap the C drive letter around via the commandline.

First, thank you for serving your country; happy Veteran's Day. But second, according to this: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-assign-permanent-drive-letter-windows-10 you can swap it around (see second part "using a command line" in the article), and in fact it did work until rebooting.

 

[USAFRet]

However it happened initially, you can't just swap the C drive letter around via the commandline.

First, thank you for serving your country; happy Veteran's Day. But second, according to this: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-assign-permanent-drive-letter-windows-10 you can swap it around (see second part "using a command line" in the article), and in fact it did work until rebooting.

From your link:
"Fortunately, you can manually assign a permanent letter to any drive you connect using Windows 10 (excluding the C drive, of course). "
(emphasis mine)

Sure you can change the drive letter from the commandline.
Until you reboot, as you have found.

Tens of thousands of entries in the Registry all point to the C. A commandline edit does not rewrite all of those.
Upon reboot, it is looking for specific resources in a specific path...starting with C. And that path no longer exists.

 

[johnbl]

The method should work. I have seen it fail when you have a intel Rapid Storage Technology driver. most often when there are two drives with a reserved partiton on them. use the same method but alos assign a drive letter to the reserved partiton that you don't want to use. see it you can reboot and get the system to work correctly.
then either update the intel storage driver or remove it and use the default microsoft driver. Assuming that you are not running in raid.

I have also seen cases that failed since the person did not have the admin password to the bios and could not load the proper signature or set the system to legacy boot mode.

OS Windows 10 won't boot and I found that the OS was no longer on drive letter C but on drive letter F; C was now "system". Got to a command prompt, typed "diskpart", then "list volume", found volume 2 was the C "system" and volume 3 was F "windows". Typed "select volume 2", then typed "assign letter=z" which changed volume 2 "system" from C to Z. Then typed "select volume 3", then typed "assign letter=c" which put the OS back to c. Then typed "select volume 2", typed "assign letter=f" which put "system" on drive F. Then typed "list volume" and everything looked right. Typed "exit". Tried to reboot and still didn't work; found that the OS was again on drive letter F and system was on C! Why didn't it stay the way I changed it!

 

[techmsgt3855]

However it happened initially, you can't just swap the C drive letter around via the commandline.

First, thank you for serving your country; happy Veteran's Day. But second, according to this: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-assign-permanent-drive-letter-windows-10 you can swap it around (see second part "using a command line" in the article), and in fact it did work until rebooting.

From your link:
"Fortunately, you can manually assign a permanent letter to any drive you connect using Windows 10 (excluding the C drive, of course). "
(emphasis mine)

Sure you can change the drive letter from the commandline.
Until you reboot, as you have found.

Tens of thousands of entries in the Registry all point to the C. A commandline edit does not rewrite all of those.
Upon reboot, it is looking for specific resources in a specific path...starting with C. And that path no longer exists.

Thanks! That makes sense; unfortunately then there is no recourse if something changes Windows OS to a different drive letter. Resetting the computer is the only answer I guess.

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks! That makes sense; unfortunately then there is no recourse if something changes Windows OS to a different drive letter. Resetting the computer is the only answer I guess.

Recovering from a good backup is the real answer.

I'm still curious as to exactly how this happened in the first place.

 

[techmsgt3855]

Thanks! That makes sense; unfortunately then there is no recourse if something changes Windows OS to a different drive letter. Resetting the computer is the only answer I guess.

Recovering from a good backup is the real answer.

I'm still curious as to exactly how this happened in the first place.

Me too, and I had a good backup with Acronis 2018 but it kept stalling mid recovery; I checked the backup (validate is the word they used) to be sure it was good and it was. Never knew why it stalled but Resetting Windows worked so all's good.