Can't get Win7 to boot, drive letters changed

[mailalan]

I can't get Windows 7 to boot up and I believe it's because my drive letters have changed. My operating system which was on drive C: is now drive E:. And what was drive F: is now drive D:. My DVD drive is now labeled F:. I believe that whats now the D: drive needs to be relabeled F: because that's where my Win7 user profile is stored.

Here is what happened: The battery on my motherboard died causing my BIOS settings to be lost. This caused caused Intel Rapid Storage to drop two drives out of one of my RAID arrays.

In my setup I have two SSD drives in a RAID 1 array. This was my C: drive with the Windows 7 operating system.

I also had 4 spinning SATA drives in a RAID 10 array. This was my F: drive where I had placed my Win7 user profile.

When my BIOS settings were lost, Windows could not find the F: drive and would not boot up. Following the instructions here ( https://blog.jordanhopfner.com/2014...array-with-disks-that-havent-actually-failed/ ) I recovered the lost RAID array that used to be my F: drive.

Before I realized what happened though, I had used Bootrec.exe in the Windows 7 Recovery Environment to run the FixMbr, /FixBoot, and /RebuildBcd commands. The first two said they worked but /RebuildBcd did not. I think doing that made things worse. So now I can't boot up.

So my old C: drive is now labeled as the E: drive.
And my old F: drive is now labeled as the D: drive.

I think I need to restore the correct drive letters as C: and F: before Windows will boot. Is that correct? Can anyone tell me how to fix this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

 

[Ketchup]

See if this helps you:
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/210166-how-to-make-raid-active-or-assign-drive-letter

 

[mailalan]

Thanks for your suggestion but I had already tried that. Whatever I do in the Win7 Recovery Environment does not stick when I reboot the machine. The drive letters go back to what they were before I changed them.

 

[XavierMace]

Unfortunately, as you mentioned, you probably made things worse once you started messing with bootrec. What does your boot order look like in your BIOS?

 

[mailalan]

It tries to boot from the DVD drive first, then the hard drive. It will try to start Windows but hangs on the "Starting Windows" screen and then reboots itself. I now have a C: drive that has nothing in it but a Temp folder. My E: drive has my OS files.

 

[Paperdoc]

You need to understand something important for this. You can NOT "assign" the name C: to a drive just to make it the boot drive. In fact, whatever drive the machine boot successfully from, Windows labels that the C: drive. THEN it assigns other letters top other drives. It is those OTHER drives that Windows will let you assign new letters to, AFTER it is running from the boot drive which is always C:.

What you do need to do it solve the problem of getting your machine to boot from the device you want. It may be easier to do this by disconnecting the four HDD units and having only the two SSD's and your optical drive connected. Verify that the SSD's are in a valid RAID1 array. If their data are OK, and you have Windows installed on that drive, then the issue to address is where the Windows boot manager is located. There's also the issue of where and how Windows can load the RAID1 device driver, but since that WAS working before I suspect that is still on the RAID1 array and accessible.

With your structure I'm not exactly clear on this last point, but I'm basing these comments on what happens if you have two simple drives - one to boot from with Windows installed on it, and another for data - that BOTH were installed at the time Windows was first installed on your system. In that situation Windows will have placed the Boot Manager and some associated files on the second (data) drive as a backup of important system files for use in recovering from certain problems at a later time. These are needed for a sort of "automatic fix-itself" system if the system files on the boot device become corrupted. But thereafter at every boot-up, Windows will look to the SECOND drive to be sure those files are available (and also the Boot Manager), and if they are not, will not boot up! In that simpler two-drive system, there is a way to work around this "problem" if the second drive is not available. You disconnect it, leaving only your boot device and your optical drive connected. Then you place your Windows Install CD in the optical drive, boot from that and do NOT run a normal Install. Instead you run a Repair Install. This searches your system, finding only one drive to use, and finding also that those backup files and Boot Manager are not there. So it places new copies of those essential pieces on the boot device (the only place available) and sets itself to boot completely from that one device. When the repair Install is finished you exit out, remove the Install CD and reboot. When your system can boot smoothly from that one boot device, you shut down and re-connect any other drives and reboot again. At that point the machine can always boot from the main boot device only, whether or not any other drives are connected, but all the drives will be available after booting. In your case, IF that RAID10 array still is not accessible, you can concentrate on that issue separately, now that your machine can boot cleanly without their being available.

 

[mailalan]

I would like to try what you've suggested here. But everything I read says I cannot do a "repair install" if I cannot already boot into windows. How do I do a repair install as you've suggested?

https://social.technet.microsoft.co...ching-from-within-the-os?forum=w7itprogeneral

 

[Paperdoc]

I see what you mean. I found this web page about how to use the Install DVD to repair Win 7.

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-perform-a-startup-repair-in-windows-7-2626170

Four important notes.
See Step 4 - use the correct "Repair your Computer" link
See Step 6 in the screen pic. Note the instruction about using the "Load Drivers" tab if your existing OS is not found on a drive yet.
See Step 7 in the screen pic. This web page concentrates on using the "Startup Repair" tool. An alternative, "System Image Recovery", is only possible if you previously created and stored such a system image in preparation for disaster.
NOTE the "Important Note" at the end of Step 8 about ensuring that only the one drive (in this case, a RAID1 of two SSD's) is connected at the time you do this work.

I'll also call your attention to a very general point. Doing this sort of work always carries a risk that your data may become corrupted and useless. As a precaution, one is always advised to make a complete backup of the drive(s) being worked on BEFORE you start, just in case. Now, making a backup of the contents of a RAID1 array is a little trickier than doing that for a single drive unit, so I'm not sure how. But there MAY be another approach that also has implications for doing the repair on your C: drive.

Management of your RAID1 array is done using tools built into your mobo's BIOS, and does not require having the machine running under an OS. I expect that this system is how you created the RAID1 array in the first place. In many RAID1 management systems the tools include some ways to recover from a failure of the RAID1 array. So, look for a manual document on how to use the RAID system on your mobo.

Such tools often include how to recover when a single disk in the array fails but the other is still good. This is a major reason for the RAID1 system - ability to recover from this failure mode. In brief, the tools for this usually include ways to do this sequence:
(a) Break the RAID1 array so that both drive units become separate drives, each usable by themselves. Although this assumes that one of those two will NOT be usable because it has failed, that is not necessary - both might be usable if there was no failure.
(b) Disable (disconnect) one of those drives so only the connected one is in use. Under "normal" circumstances you would then be able to boot and run from this "good" drive. In your case, you cannot (I presume) because the unit still has some problems. THIS is when you CAN and SHOULD make a complete backup of that still-connected drive, probably by cloning.
(c) Now you can use the Win 7 Startup Repair process on only that one drive. BE SURE that the RAID driver is installed.
(d) When completed so the machine can work with only that drive installed, you shut down and re-connect its companion.
(e) Boot directly into the RAID Management system and use the tool there to ADD that second unit to the first one in a new RAID1 array. This will re-create the RAID1 array and copy everything from the "good" unit to the second unit. That completely restores the array.
(f) reboot and verify that it is all working.

Read the manual and verify that the tools I suggest you look for in Steps a and e are there - that is, that you CAN Break an array into functioning single drives, and you can re-create the RAID1 array by adding a second drive to it with an automatic data restore function. If you are sure those exist and you underrtand how to use them, this might be your best path. It changes your task to doing a repair job on a simple case of a single stand-alone drive, and later restoring the RAID1 array. It also makes creating a backup copy of your C: drive simpler, because you would not be trying to back up a RAID1 array.

 

[mailalan]

Well I disconnected the 4 spinning hard drives and tried booting with just the 2 SSD's in RAID1. That didn't work. I then tried booting with just 1 SSD. In both instances it hangs at the "starting windows" logo and reboots itself. I do not get a BSOD. In both instances after it rebooted itself I tried startup repair from the installation DVD and got the message that the windows could not be repaired.

At this point I am going to just reinstall Windows. I've been able to save all my data so I won't lose anything other than time. However this time I will install everything on the C: drive and not move my user profile and I will also start taking system image backups.

Thank you everyone for all your time and help. I've learned some valuable lessons from this.

 

[lenjack]

You need to understand something important for this. You can NOT "assign" the name C: to a drive just to make it the boot drive. In fact, whatever drive the machine boot successfully from, Windows labels that the C: drive. THEN it assigns other letters top other drives. It is those OTHER drives that Windows will let you assign new letters to, AFTER it is running from the boot drive which is always C:.

What you do need to do it solve the problem of getting your machine to boot from the device you want. It may be easier to do this by disconnecting the four HDD units and having only the two SSD's and your optical drive connected. Verify that the SSD's are in a valid RAID1 array. If their data are OK, and you have Windows installed on that drive, then the issue to address is where the Windows boot manager is located. There's also the issue of where and how Windows can load the RAID1 device driver, but since that WAS working before I suspect that is still on the RAID1 array and accessible.

With your structure I'm not exactly clear on this last point, but I'm basing these comments on what happens if you have two simple drives - one to boot from with Windows installed on it, and another for data - that BOTH were installed at the time Windows was first installed on your system. In that situation Windows will have placed the Boot Manager and some associated files on the second (data) drive as a backup of important system files for use in recovering from certain problems at a later time. These are needed for a sort of "automatic fix-itself" system if the system files on the boot device become corrupted. But thereafter at every boot-up, Windows will look to the SECOND drive to be sure those files are available (and also the Boot Manager), and if they are not, will not boot up! In that simpler two-drive system, there is a way to work around this "problem" if the second drive is not available. You disconnect it, leaving only your boot device and your optical drive connected. Then you place your Windows Install CD in the optical drive, boot from that and do NOT run a normal Install. Instead you run a Repair Install. This searches your system, finding only one drive to use, and finding also that those backup files and Boot Manager are not there. So it places new copies of those essential pieces on the boot device (the only place available) and sets itself to boot completely from that one device. When the repair Install is finished you exit out, remove the Install CD and reboot. When your system can boot smoothly from that one boot device, you shut down and re-connect any other drives and reboot again. At that point the machine can always boot from the main boot device only, whether or not any other drives are connected, but all the drives will be available after booting. In your case, IF that RAID10 array still is not accessible, you can concentrate on that issue separately, now that your machine can boot cleanly without their being available.

Must respectfully disagree. My W10 setup's boot drive is D. There is NO C drive. The only other drive is E which is Dvd RW. It has been this way since W7.