Question Windows 10 drives swapped after sending them to repair

[Lloyd959]

Hi everyone,

Setting
Recently I sent my laptop back for repair, it turned out my D: drive (HDD) was faulty.
Before sending my computer out for repairs i made a system image, hoping I could get back to it when my laptop returned.
When the laptop returned I used the system image to restore the previous installation + files.
However upon finishing the system image I noticed the computer was running quite slowly.
It turned out that Windows is now installed on the HDD, which previously was my D: drive, and my SSD is now my D: drive.
I don't know if this would cause significant driver issues, but i guessed both the HDD and SSD wouldn't like it.
Furthermore my SSD is around 500 GB in storage, and my HDD is around 1TB in storage.
I am not sure what exactly caused the following problem, but my HDD now also has a 500 GB partition I can't acces or repartition using diskmanagement.
So after I found out the driver letters were swapped, i tried a system restore. Hoping I could install Windows 10 on the SDD this way.
I wasn't able to install Windows 10 in my SSD, when trying to install from a USB recovery drive it kept giving errors when choosing the SSD.

What i have done so far

1. I tried multiple times to reinstall windows 10 seeing if I could fix the problems I had via system restore. (Doing this has made the partitions a total mess.)
2. I tried using a USB recovery drive.
3. I tried changing the drive letter in diskmanagment
4. I tried moving and deleting partitions in diskmanagment (I am not allowed to delete EFI-system images)
5. I tried increasing the size of a partition (Only the option for reducing size is available.

What i want to achieve

I would like to swap back my C: and D: drive, so that I am able to use the system image that I made.

Note
I found an article from microsoft about changing the C: Drive letter.
However because it involves editing the register in a significant way I felt hesitant to go down this road.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/backup-and-storage/restore-system-boot-drive-letter

Also the newly installed HDD seems to exactly the same as the standard issue the laptop came with.
So i suppose using a system image shouldn't cause any trouble.

System Information

Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 19044) (19041.vb_release.191206-1406)​

Language: Dutch (Regional Setting: Dutch)​

System Manufacturer: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.​

System Model: GF75 Thin 10SCXR​

BIOS: E17F4IMS.102 (type: UEFI)​

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10750H CPU @ 2.60GHz (12 CPUs), ~2.6GHz​

Memory: 16384MB RAM​

​

 

[USAFRet]

Clueless and incompetent repair shop.

Do NOT simply try to change the C drive letter.

Why not just a full wipe and reinstall on the desired drive?
How did you create this System Image?

 

[Lloyd959]

Yeah, I am pretty dissappointed with their service.
I used the windows 7 backup settings that are built-in windows 10, the one that says "create a system image".
Found at "Control Panel\System and Security\Backup and Restore (Windows 7)".

Is using the restore options via windows and formatting the selected windows drive via the USB recovery drive the same as the full wipe you mean?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Yeah, I am pretty dissappointed with their service.

I don't think it's repair shop to blame.
System image got restored on HDD. You did it yourself.

Disconnect HDD from system and try to boot into windows.
If everything goes well, then boot from windows installation media and clean HDD using diskpart clean method.

 

[USAFRet]

Yeah, I am pretty dissappointed with their service.
I used the windows 7 backup settings that are built-in windows 10, the one that says "create a system image".
Found at "Control Panel\System and Security\Backup and Restore (Windows 7)".

Is using the restore options via windows and formatting the selected windows drive via the USB recovery drive the same as the full wipe you mean?

When the laptop returned I used the system image to restore the previous installation + files.

Ah, I missed this line.

Yes, I think you did this yourself.

 

[Lloyd959]

Im pretty sure I selected the C: drive when installing the system image, so that would mean the drives where swapped to begin with.
Regardless of whoevers fault it was, the issue remains the same.

Disconnect HDD from system and try to boot into windows.
If everything goes well, then boot from windows installation media and clean HDD using diskpart clean method.

The SSD is empty apart from an EFI-partion and a restore-partition, so is that going to work?
Also both drives are in GPT, this should be the right format right?