Windows 10: OS believes I have used the letter D for drives and won't give it back

I have been trying to recover from a broken 1511, 2 apparently failed drives (not real sure about one of them), and getting the OS to have the double secret administrator activated.

There are so many things not explained and cause unwanted changes. I activated the super admin account. Then I tried to include my user ID into the administrator group. At some point I was having a popup for everything that could possibly use admin. Every time I started an application previously installed. I fixed that but I am really not sure how. Then I had three logon versions on the boot screen. One for admin, one for me that is a member in the admin group, and one using my ID name but led to a version of the OS that made applications and internal parts crash.

I made the extra name DISAPPEAR (again, not sure how) and now have one for me and one for administrator. There may still be something odd going on with names.

My immediate problem is replacing the failed disk drive that was my D drive. On it was essentially all the data I have. The other drive to fail was the external RAID, which contained the image of the broken D. And I do not have a working backup system because of the broken drive. I have a Mediasonic RAID cabinet. They say I should not attempt RAID 5 (I was using RAID and want to upgrade safety) because some drives will break things. No list of drives that can be used. I am using Seagate 4TB Barracuda drives. I could use some idea if these drives are OK, in addition to my major problem.

THE MAJOR PROBLEM - The OS refuses to let me assign the letter D to the drive. Somehow it thinks it owns that disk somewhere. Much of the assorted data I have on the real D has multiple links from applications running on the C drive. They, obviously, point to D*****. I need to get the new drive set as the sole official D, not E or higher.

I know that is a lot of text, but I tried to help understand what was going on.

:)

 

Windows 10 cannot extend unallocated drive volume

I had the same problem and found the solution here: Extend Volume option is grayed out or disabled in Windows 10/8/7

Basically there must be unallocated space directly to the right of the C drive, normally this space is taken up by the D drive so temporally delete all of it (backing up and data you have on there first) then allocate a portion of the free space you need
to your C drive (the "Extend Volume" option won't be greyed out and more) and then create a new volume from what's left and give it the letter D.

 

Win 10 anniversary update disappeared my internal secondary hard drive

I have the same Problem.

Harddrive C: with OS fine. Also drive E: was finde. Only D: drive is missing.

Can see it in the disk manager but only half size and grey with stripes. no name no drive letter.

and it is not possible to change name or the drive letter because all is greyed out. only on D: Harddrive.

After a Rollback to the previus build the harddrive was back again and all files still there. i found lots of forums where user post this problem with the missing D drive. must be bug.

 

Can you post a shot of disk Management ?

If you have Raid setup in the Bios, that may have something to do with it.

 

It is an external RAID - visible to the computer as a single normal disk. his is not related to the problem with the missing D.

Disk manager knows the problem drive is there and shows properties properly. Just will no longer let me assign D to anything. The list when trying to relabel it starts at E.

 

Hi There

Seen this several times before, possible causes are hardware connection issues which would remove the drive and cause the OS to rediscover the drives and reassign letters.
Sometimes get messed up when reassigning.


Run regedit.exe
Backup the registry...

Find "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE->SYSTEM->MountedDevices"find lines likeDosDevices\D*BiggrinosDevices\G:
Changes the letters as required
Not a good idea to do this on C: or where programs are installed though *Wink

HTH

 

Thanks, I got to the register entry and there are entries for D and the E that I got as the default when trying to create a D drive.

Unfortunately I have no idea what to do next.

Should I delete the entry for D?

If so, should I do anything with the E that I don't want and just relabel it after deleting the D entry?

I hear scary music in the background when I open the registry.

• *Eek
  
  

 

This does not work for you?





As for the dvd or cd drive, scroll further down the disk management and you will find it in the lower left where you can manage it there much like with the menu options shown above.

 

If the scary music is present, don't open the registry

Sorry but I cannot replicate the issue and without hands on, its difficult to understand your complete scenario.

A few screen shots would help us understand what you are seeing when trying to change the drive letters

 

jl2509,

Discard attempted humor about music. When I get to where you pointed, there are just strings of hex characters for each drive. They vary from short to longer than can be displayed.

My current question is what do I do to "Changes the letters as required". I have no idea what that means.

Do I:
- delete the entry for the drive letter that I want deactivated so I can assign the letter to a new drive
- delete the data string for the drive
- replace the data string with something else

Thanks

If someone has the answer but is in a closer time zone, please tell me.

 

Can you try this method here? Can't change hard drive letter to needed letter Solved - Windows 7 Help Forums