Windows 10: Duplicate D:\ drive

Hi Everyone,


I posted this on the Microsoft Community site as well, but then I found these forums and they seem a lot more active so I thought I might have a better shot here.

So I have a problem where I accidentally created a duplicate of my D: \ drive. This is not the same issue of Windows 10 duplicating display names for which there is a registry fix. I have tried this and it does not work.



Here's basically what happened:

I have an SSD (C:\) and an HDD (D:\). The SSD is rather small so I am trying to reserve it only for things that I want to be there. i.e. I have moved temp files, tmp, internet history, and downloads all to my HDD. I didn't move the Videos, Music, etc files before because I hadn't used them. Today I was going to end up using my Videos folder, so I wanted this on my HDD instead of my SSD. I made one small mistake in relocating this folder to my HDD and this is where the problem lies.

I right clicked on Videos -> properties -> location -> Move. The problem is that at this stage I hadn't created a Videos folder on my D:\ drive. So in the field of where to move the folder, instead of being D:\Videos, it was just D: \.


This resulted in a duplicate of my D: \ drive. One is normal like it always had been (DATA (D: \ the other just has D:\ but the icon is that of the videos folder (picture below). This folder contains everything that is on my D:\ drive and if I delete something from one, it deletes it from the other.





I am not able to move this folder or restore its default location (access denied even though I'm the administrator). I was able to get back the original Videos folder through a fix I found elsewhere. If I open the properties for the D: \ drive (with the videos icon) it comes up as if I clicked on the properties of the DATA (D: \ drive (picture below).



Also, if I open the properties of the DATA (D: \ drive and go to location and click restore default, it thinks that the default location is C:\Users\...\Videos which obviously should not be the case. Basically these two "drives" seem to be linked together now.


This isn't a HUGE problem, but it is very frustrating and annoying and I was hoping that someone might be able to help me. I am not very experienced with Windows 10.



Thank you in advance for any help.

:)

 

Duplicate D:\ drive

Hi,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community.

It's unfortunate that you are facing this issue. Let me assist you to resolve the issue.

We suggest you to take a backup of D: drive in flash drive and format it to diagnose the issue.

Let us know the status of the issue. We will be glad to assist you.

 

Duplicate D:\ drive

Hi Everyone,

So I have a problem where I accidentally created a duplicate of my D:\ drive. This is not the same issue of Windows 10 duplicating display names for which there is a registry fix. I have tried this and it does not work.

Here's basically what happened:

I have an SSD (C:\) and an HDD (D:\). The SSD is rather small so I am trying to reserve it only for things that I want to be there. i.e. I have moved temp files, tmp, internet history, and downloads all to my HDD. I didn't move the Videos, Music, etc files
before because I hadn't used them. Today I was going to end up using my Videos folder, so I wanted this on my HDD instead of my SSD. I made one small mistake in relocating this folder to my HDD and this is where the problem lies.

I right clicked on Videos -> properties -> location -> Move. The problem is that at this stage I hadn't created a Videos folder on my D:\ drive. So in the field of where to move the folder, instead of being D:\Videos, it was just D:\.

This resulted in a duplicate of my D:\ drive. One is normal like it always had been (DATA (D the other just has D:\ but the icon is that of the videos folder. This folder contains everything that is on my D:\ drive and if I delete something from one, it
deletes it from the other.





I am not able to move this folder or restore its default location. I was able to get back the Videos folder through a fix I found elsewhere. If I open the properties for the D:\ drive (with the videos icon) it comes up as if I clicked on the properties of
the DATA (D drive.



Also, if I open the properties of the DATA (D drive and go to location and click restore default, it thinks that the default location is C:\Users\...\Videos which obviously should not be the case. Basically these two "drives" seem to be linked together
now.

This isn't a HUGE problem, but it is very frustrating and annoying and I was hoping that someone might be able to help me. I am not very experienced with Windows 10.

Thank you in advance for any help.

 

I don't have a solution just a suggestion. Make a backup of the files you want to keep to another drive in case they get deleted from your D: drive.

 

I would advise that you change the location without moving, e.g. to D:\Videos, then select all the videos and video folders in D:\ except D:\Videos of course, then cut and paste into D:\Videos.

 

Thank you both for the replies.
Winuser - I have definitely made sure everything is backed up, thanks for making the suggestions.
NovHak - Thank you for the suggestion. I tried what you said and unfortunately it did not work. I get an access denied message when I try to change the location, even without using the move button.

On the Microsoft Community forums, a Microsoft Support Engineer suggested that I format the HDD. I was hoping to get it resolved without resulting in a format, but that might be my best option.

 

Hi, don't know if this will help - note the specific options related to Videos.
Users Personal Folders - Restore Default Location in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

If that doesn't work within Windows, you may be able to make use of the registry references in the bat file and so edit the registry from a live boot disk which should overcome the access denied problems.

 

Hi dalchina,

Thank you for the reply. That was actually the link that I used to restore the Videos folder to the initial location on the C:\ drive (SSD). The issue that I'm having now is that, after having restored the Videos folder, I still have a duplicate D:\ drive (basically just a mirror) and my actual D:\ drive thinks that it's default location is C:\users\...\Videos.

So I have a proper Videos folder in its original default location, and a mirrored D:\ drive, for which BOTH locations think the default is actually on my C:\. I need to somehow separate the actual drive from the mirror, but I'm not sure if this is even possible.

I'm trying to figure out why this would even be a possibility, but I'm left scratching my head.

I really do appreciate all the suggestions.

 

I think you've created a 'junction'.
Junction

This suggests a command you can use to remove it.
(You have to download Sysinternals 'junction' tool).
I've no experience here, so will not try to specify a command.
However you can research this further.

===== or.. maybe
I'd have a look in the registry entries as I suggested, to see if anything looks amiss. You lose nothing by looking, but if you wish to change sthg, turn system restore on or do a backup or export the registry entry first.

 

I wonder if saving all your files from the D: drive then deleting or formatting the D: drive would work?

 

Certainly easy to try, but does the problem not lie in C:?

 

Thanks for the information about the Junction. I also have no experience here so this makes me a little nervous messing around with this, but I suppose I could take a look.

I'm actually a little peeved about Windows 10 in that System Restore is not on by default. I was not aware of this, but had it been on, this might have been the answer to my problem. I guess that's my fault for not checking, but I really didn't think I would need to.

Winuser, this is actually what was suggested on the Microsoft Community Forums. I haven't done this just yet as I posted a clarification back. If you don't mind I'll post that here as well because I'm sure someone here could answer that (see below in quotes). Also, like dalchina, I'm not sure if the problem lies with the D: drive or actually the C: drive. Ultimately if necessary I could do both. Not ideal, but I do want this to be fixed.

Thanks again!

"Before I go ahead with the format, I just wanted to ask a quick question. I am very familiar with formatting drives in terms of reinstalling Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7), but as I mentioned, I am not very familiar with Windows 10. Also, I have never done this on a computer with two drives installed.
So just to clarify so that I do not make a mistake, if I format the HDD, this will not affect my SSD, which contains my operating system, correct? And second, in order to format the HDD in Windows 10, I Open Computer Management by clicking the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Security, clicking Administrative Tools, and then double-clicking Computer Management. Then in the left pane, under Storage, click Disk Management. Then right-click the volume that I want to format, and then click Format. Correct? Should I perform a quick format?

While we're briefly on the topic of Disk Management, when I open it, I notice a Recovery Partition listed (alongside my SSD). The size of this partition is 499MB, but it indicates that it is 100% free. Is this going to cause a problem creating a recovery USB drive? I have only had the laptop for a couple of weeks and this is how it came to me, but I have not yet had the chance to create recovery media as I did not have a large enough USB drive. I have opened up the create recovery media area to determine the size of USB key I would need (16GB), but I have not yet tried to go through the process. I just picked up a large enough USB drive yesterday."

 

I would think the problem is with the D: drive. If the D: drive is deleted/formatted the problem should be fixed. Then ShaneN17 could copy the files back to the D: drive.

 

I agree MS should have System Restore turned on by default. I can understand why it gets turned off when doing a upgrade in the Insider build but not in the RTM version. *Smile

 

The Recovery partition is part of Windows, and should be on the same drive as Windows. Not to be confused with a Recovery partition (bigger) provided by the manufacturer which allows the PC to be restored to a state as bought.

Formatting D, assuming you choose the correct drive (!) will not affect the SSD if D: is on your HDD.

Note: whilst this is a rather straightforward operation in Disk Management, which is perfectl adequate for this, usually these things are clearer in a 3rd party partition manager, which also provide a boot medium (some available free e.g. Minitools) and more flexibility and features.

You might like to take this opportunity to start to use disk imaging, which allows you to recover quickly and easily to a previous working state by restoring an image you have created (considering your OS) and also acts as a full backup.

This is strongly recommended as routine practise here.

Thus you could use e.g. Macrium Reflect (free) to create images of your drives. (Quicker than copying the data)
Then format D:
Then mount the image of D: and copy the data from that to D: