Renamed C: to D:

I am restoring an image of my server onto a new hard disk, and it has renamed the drive letters on all partitions. C-> D:, E->F etc..
Is it possible for me to change the Partitions drive letters back after the restore (especially the C:??)

Basically what is happening is that my server is running of an Acronis True Image server boot cd. I am currently restoring the image file I created which is DISK1 (C: Dell Server, E: Data File, and F: User Files). Since the cd-rom was present, it is now moving the contents of C: to D: now. I am currently in a Pre boot environment.

After I am done, and the server doesn't boot- can't I go to a recovery console and do a repair install? This should fix the MBR, correct? After this, can I change the D: back to C:, reboot, and do a repair install again?

 

This probably happened because you are restoring an image to a new hard disk while the old hard disk is apparently still installed and doing a disk clone is the usual method of installing a new hard disk. If you remove the drive with the C partition on it first, install the new hard disk in place of it and then try restoring the image the problem should not occur. The only partition that cannot be renamed is the one with the operating system on it (which is usually C). Your new hard disk of course should be at least as large as your old one. The only other reason C is renamed during an image restore in my experience is because the main boot record got changed and Acronis then renames the old C the next unused letter. This is easily fixed but doesn’t appear to be the reason you are experiencing the problem.

 

I think you will find that once you have done the restore, the drive letters will revert to 'normal'. The apparent change occurs because the boot disk runs in a Linux environment which allocates drive letters in a different way (to Windows). Once you have restored and are back in the Windows environment, the drive letters will be as you would expect them to be.

If you checked the box beside the disk name so that your MBR was included in the image i.e. if you have taken an image of the entire disk, you should not need to fix the MBR - your system should boot as normal.

 

This is not correct from my experience. Acronis usually does not say it will rename C drive to another letter unless something is wrong. I have had Acronis tell me it wanted to change C to H (H was the first unused letter) and it did this as I discovered after booting into Windows. However after I formatted the drive a new main boot record was created and Acronis then renamed H back to C after redoing the image restore which is what it should have done the first time.

The fact that the boot CD uses a Linux environment does not normally cause the problem described as the partition on which the operating system is located is clear even in a Linux environment and Acronis normally tells you it will create a new C drive unless something is wrong and it then wants to change C to another letter.

The fact that Trihimbulus is using a server makes it a bit different from my experience of the problem but the cause of the problem and solution are probably the same. Trihimbulus wrote that he was using a new hard disk to write the image to and in my 1st post I thought he had left the old hard disk in the computer and this caused the problem but if he removed the old hard disk the new one is no doubt unformatted and formatting it will create a main boot record which should fix the problem.

If anyone wants to test this remove C drive from your computer and temporarily put it into another computer as a slave drive. Then put it back into the 1st computer as a master and try to do an Acronis image restore. You should find Acronis will tell you it will call C something else like E or F. If you do the restore and boot into Windows you will find C drive has been renamed exactly as Acronis indicated. Then try formatting the drive or if my memory serves me correctly even doing the restore again and Acronis will do what it should have done the 1st time and correctly name the partition Windows is on C.

 

How to rename D back to C

Windows XP- Click start, control panel, then Admin tools, computer management, click + besides storage, click disk management, right click the drive who's name got changed i.e D: change to C: , you will probably have to temp rename D say to I: in order for name change, you can always go back and change it back.

Scorpion

 

You can only do this if an operating system isn't on the drive. His post suggests that he wants the drive that Windows is on to be renamed back to C and this cannot be done the way that you described.