Windows 10: My Drives Swapped letters. C drive which is boot drive is now D and D drive which contains...

Hi, after using my laptop a few days ago, I decided to reboot and windows couldn't boot.

After trying every possible fix without success, I had to reinstall windows via a USB stick.


I took a photo of my volumes after reinstalling windows. Everything was ok.





After installing all my programs today, I decided to reboot again and windows won't boot again.


I checked my disk volumes in windows RE troubleshooting/command prompt and saw that my drive letters has changed.

My C drive which is the boot drive, is now D and D drive is C. There's also a new drive E letter which didn't have any letter assigned. Please help me to fix this :




:)

 

Boot error INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE, drive letters C: and D: switched

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I did as suggested, but it did not solve the problem.

Not sure from which drive I'm supposed to execute the commands and if this matters at all. When entering command prompt mode, I was on drive X: and can change to C: and D:, I executed first on C:, then on D:, with same result:

BOOTREC /FIXMBR -> process completed

BOOTREC /FIXBOOT -> access denied

BOOTREC /scanos -> 0 Windows installations found

BOOTREC /rebuildbcd -> 0 Windows installations found

As indicated in my original post, drive letters C: (was originally the SSD with Windows and program installations) and D: (was originally the HDD holding data) have somehow switched. When I go to C: in command prompt and execute DIR, it shows me all the
content that was supposed to be on D: and vice versa.

That means, I can find the Windows directory that was supposed on C: under drive letter D: now, which might be a symptom of the issue, or the root cause.

So might it help to switch back drive letters C: and D:, and how can this be done?

Thanks and regards.

 

Change "D" drive to "C" drive.

Hi Bill, you can use a program like the free Macrium reflect to clone your C drive onto your D drive, then swap the drives around on the SATA ports on your Motherboard.

Pull the old C drive out and the other drive should then boot up . . .

 

Boot error INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE, drive letters C: and D: switched

Issue:

Error (blue screen) when booting with stop code (DE Stillstandcode) INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE. Computer restarts automatically and then freezes with message “automatic repair being prepared” (DE “Automatische Reparatur wird vorbereitet”). After manual
shut down, the same happens all over again.

System:

Lenovo IdeaPad C340-15IWL with pre-installed Windows 10 (updated to latest version / fixes) with two drives:

128 GB SSD with Windwos and program files (C: “Windows-SDD”)

1 TB HDD as data storage (D: “Data”)

Reason:

Not clear. Just three days before a BIOS update (ALCN28WW V2.05) has been installed, after which the fingerprint scanner didn’t work any longer. Lenovo support suggested to reset BIOS to defaults and re-install driver, which did not solve the problem,
but at least the computer still worked. After another restart, the issue occurred.

Troubleshooting:

1) Loaded default settings in BIOS again
no change.

2) Booted from Win 10 installation USB flash drive, chose repair options (DE “Computerreparaturoptionen”), then troubleshooting (DE “Problembehandlung”), then start help (DE “Starthilfe”)
PC could not be repaired; then chose advance options (DE “Erweiterte Optionen”), command prompt (DE “Eingabeaufforderung”); change to drive C: and D: and could see that all directories are still there, BUT DRIVE LETTERS
ARE SWITCHED: C: shows as “Data” holding all directories formerly under D:, and D: shows as “Windows-SDD” holding all directories formerly under C:

Pretty sure that this switch of drive letters is related to the issue (Windows probably tries to boot from C:, which is the wrong drive now), not idea how this came, and no idea how to switch it back to make Win work again.

Thanks for any helpful suggestion!