Windows 10: Drive letter for D, E, Y and Z are incorrect and I can't change them.

This all started with 10 needing more space than Microsoft stated. I cloned the original drive and adjusted the space accordingly. I had problems but finally got it to boot to but my drive letters for; D (Program Files), E (Documents), Y (Temp) and Z (BackUps) are moved around to; F (Program Files), G (Documents), D (Temp) and E (BackUps). I can access Control Panel but I can't access any Command Prompts, Regedit or Device Manager even though C:\ is the Windows drive. I get a message that "Windows cannot find C:\Windows\System32\diskmgmt.msc when I try to access Disk Management. I tried right clicking and opening properties and locating it manually and I get the same message. I've tried changing the drive letters from the Command Prompt using 10's install disk and Advanced under repairs. I've tried using Falcon Four UBCD and accessing the Registry from it. Neither one works.

:)

 

Drive letter for D, E, Y and Z are incorrect and I can't change them.

Your drive letters seem to be all wrong. Fixing them might be possible but will require a lot of patience, considerable skills while working at the Command Prompt and also a bootable Windows Repair flash disk. Do you have all of these?

When launching File Explorer, on which drive(s) do you see the folder "\Windows"?

 

Drive letter for D, E, Y and Z are incorrect and I can't change them.

This all started with 10 needing more space than Microsoft stated. I cloned the original drive and adjusted the space accordingly. I had problems but finally got it to boot to but my drive letters for; D (Program Files), E (Documents), Y (Temp) and Z (BackUps)
are moved around to; F (Program Files), G (Documents), D (Temp) and E (BackUps). I can access Control Panel but I can't access any Command Prompts, Regedit or Device Manager even though C:\ is the Windows drive. I get a message that "Windows cannot find C:\Windows\System32\diskmgmt.msc
when I try to access Disk Management. I tried right clicking and opening properties and locating it manually and I get the same message. I've tried changing the drive letters from the Command Prompt using 10's install disk and Advanced under repairs. I've
tried using Falcon Four UBCD and accessing the Registry from it. Neither one works.

 

You cannot change the Windows OS drive letter once it has been assigned by Windows during the install or clone. You would have to reinstall Windows cleanly to solve the problem. Try a clean install of Windows to a new drive, then attach the old drive as a secondary and assign the drive letters you like.
Once you can browse the C: drive and access Disk Management, Or you can use a 3rd party app like Minitool Partition Wizard , you can change the drive letter for all the other drives easily.

 

Just wondering.. what's the significance of F:\Program Files? I hope you haven't used a registry editor to change the ProgramFilesDir key(s) in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

That would make life hard- it's not supported.

Similarly what's Temp - provided what's in that is entirely material under your control and not OS temp files, that's fine.

 

Also note that for the last few versions of Windows drive letter Z: has been used for the first Mapped Network drive then works back up the alphabet for additional such drives. I have Z: and Y: assigned for my 2 NAS drives. If never mapping such drives the letters can be used for other drives and I've noticed on a few computers that Z: was a partition used by the OEMs when installing.

 

I ended up copying the backup back afteI deleted the mapped drives. Everything seems to be working fine.