Windows 10: Internal HDD not maintaining drive letter/not mounting after reboot

Hey all,

Brand new here, and just returning to Windows as a platform at home. Hopefully this is the right forum.

I'm experiencing a strange issue with my D: drive since what appears to be an unexpected shutdown late Saturday night (Event ID 6008). When I booted up my computer the next day, I noticed the D: drive was missing from File Explorer. Disk Management sees the EFI system partition of the drive in the bottom view as part of "Disk 0", but the main partition isn't seen in the view directly above. The main partition also loses it's drive assignment and when I attempt to re-assign "D:" to that partition I get an error stating something like "The Disk Management view is out of date, refresh and attempt again". Of course refreshing doesn't help and I can't assign a drive letter to that partition... unless I use a piece of software called Partition Wizard. I'm able to see and assign "D:" to the partition through that program fairly easily. After which, the partition has D: assigned and it become accessible and works as expected. Until the computer is rebooted or shut down. Then it is lost once again.

I did some searching on the error message I get when attempting to assign the drive letter through Disk Management. That lead me to some Windows 7 specific articles and fixes, but those didn't directly apply to Windows 10. It does seem similar to an issue regarding unexpected power loss and the loss of a partition on Windows 7.

So my question is this - is there a way besides reformatting the disk that I can make the drive mount and assign it's drive letter correctly after being power cycled?

I appreciate the help.

:)

 

0xc0000225 After partition merge, letters swapped?

After using the EASEUS boot manager to merge some unused partitions of the same disk to my C: drive, Windows reboots an I receive the 0xc0000225 error.

I then booted Windows recovery from an USB and went into the CMD. I went on DiskPart and found that the drive letters for my C drive and D drive have swapped.

(The C is on an SSD, and D is on a regular internal HDD)

I tried using the assign letter commands to fix it, but I still receive the same error and the letters are reversed still.

 

additional harddisc drive

Is this an internal HDD you have just fitted or a USB drive.

If it is an internal HDD you will need to open Disk Management and initialise the disk then allocate a drive letter to see it in File Explorer.

 

I'd like to see your Disk Management.

• Download this zip file (contains dmDskmgr-vd.mmc)
  
  dmDskmgr-vd.zip
  
• Double click dmDskmgr-vd.zip to open the compressed folder
  Double click dmDskmgr-vd.mmc to launch the custom Disk Management console
  
  
• Press Alt+PrtScn to grab a snapshot of just the Disk Management window
  Open Paint and Ctrl+V to paste it, then save the image
  
  
• Attach the image to a new post.

Thanks

 

Here are some screen shots of Disk Management before after a fresh boot prior to reassigning the drive letter with Partition Wizard. The second screen shot shows the error I encounter when attempting to assign a drive letter via Disk Management.








Thanks for the assistance.

 

Please use the dmDskmgr-vd.mmc in the zip file I posted. It gives the information in the manner that is more useful
I only need one, since I can see the error.

Why do you have two EFI System partitions, one on each drive?

A quick and dirty test would be to disconnect both drives from the machine
Reconnect Disk 1 (223.56 GB) where Disk 0 was connected and see if the machine boots.
If it does, then connect Disk 0 (1863.02 GB) where Disk 1 was connected.

Disk Management after the changes:
Disk 0 (223.56 GB)
Disk 1 (1863.02 GB)
If it doesn't boot, connect the drives the way they were.

Thanks

 

In addition. Does your D: drive contain data only ? if so then the 200MB (EFI, System partition) should not be there. You also need to swap the sata cable between disk0 and disk1 to make your Windows C: Drive on disk0.

 

Yes, the D: drive contains data only. I'm not sure why there's another EFI partition there. It was originally a hard disk that lived in a G-Tech external enclosure and had been previously formatted HFS+ (It was previously backup drive for my Mac). When I repurposed it as an internal HDD in my PC, I did go through a format and repartition via Disk Management... so I'm not sure how that EFI partition is still there.

I'll try moving the SATA connections per your suggestion. Thanks.

EDIT: I changed the SATA connections so that the boot drive is now on SATA 0 and the problematic drive is now on SATA 1. No change.