Determine the former drive letter assignments on an old boot drive


  1. Posts : 2
    Windows 10 Pro
       #1

    Determine the former drive letter assignments on an old boot drive


    Is it possible to discover the previous drive letter assignments on an old boot drive?

    I have a Windows 7 boot drive that previously was part of a system with 8 hard drives. I cloned the boot drive from this system and moved to a newer system, on which I've since done an "upgrade in place" to Windows 10 Pro. I have some software that expects the drive letters be the same as the old system (in order to find certain resources.) Ideally I would like to simply change the drive letters in the new system to match the drive letters in the old system, unfortunately, I don't remember exactly what those are. So ... instead of testing a bunch of different letter assignments, I was hoping this information might still be available on the original boot drive. Any help is appreciated.
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 8,057
    windows 10
       #2

    Welcome to the forum. The only way I can think of is look at the software either in a config file or registry searching the reg for the software should then tell you the drive I assume you know the folders for the software. You may only need to do it a couple of times
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 4,201
    Windows 10 Pro x64 Latest RP
       #3

    In addition this may be of some use ... windows - Get a list of drive letters and types from the registry - Super User it's from Win7/8 time but Microsoft rarely change the locations in the registry
      My Computers


  4. Posts : 2
    Windows 10 Pro
    Thread Starter
       #4

    Thank you to those who offered pertinent suggestions. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices doesn't show the hard drive letters in a human readable format. Searching the registry for references to the old drive letters didn't yield the results I was looking for but it did lead me to resource files on the C: drive which contained references to the old drive letters. A couple of drive letter swaps and now everything seems to be cool. Much thanks!!
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 1,983
    Windows 10 x86 14383 Insider Pro and Core 10240
       #5

    Now you've done an in-place upgrade, the registry entry for MountedDevices will reflect the current status quo.

    If you can examine the key held within the registry hives of the the cloned copy, if mounted, it will show the drive mounts as they were.
      My Computers


  6. Posts : 2,899
    Windows 10 Pro for the Bro
       #6

    Another direction of a method you can keep in mind for future reference, (assuming it applies): If you remember creating any shortcuts in that hard drive to programs that are also within that hard drive? Open that drive in File Explorer and search for: *.LNK
    If it finds any .lnk files, right click > Properties. See where the original location is of that file.
      My Computer


 

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