# Errors after system drive letter change



## fijosh (Jul 29, 2009)

Hi, I've been recently moving a system partition on the drive and unfortunately, the drive letter changed in the process (E: -> C

After this occured, i couldn't login, so I had to use this to fix it. I could login after that, but the server was (is) incredibly slow, some icons on desktop are randomly missing, there are no icons in tray (only clock is visible), no .msc files can be executed (defrag, services, etc..) (the error says something about MMC console being unable to open the file).
Also, there is a printer installed on the server and shared to the network and from what I've heard, people that need to use that printer cannot see it.(I connected to their PCs through remote desktop and I was able to see it... well, most of the time, sometimes it really wasn't there..)

The OS is Win. Server 2003 Standard R2 with SP2

Anyways, Iam really not sure, what to do at this point.. Change the letter back? Or are some of the Windows files corrupted?.... Anybody got any idea? Thanks in advance...


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## peterh40 (Apr 15, 2007)

It sounds like a lot of the entries in the registry are pointing to the wrong location. The environment variables such as PATH will need updating to locate files. 

In this case a reinstall may be better unless you are willing to check every entry in registry etc to get it working again.


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## avisitor (Jul 13, 2008)

I'd shoot for changing the drive letter back if that's a feasible option (but backup completely before you do anything)


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## TheOutcaste (Aug 8, 2007)

Welcome to TSG!

How to restore the system/boot drive letter in Windows


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## fijosh (Jul 29, 2009)

Okay, I'll make my way to the server tomorrow, so I'll try to change the letter back... Theoretically it should fix it, but I've already changed some entries to point at the new letter, but i hope there won't be any problems if i change those back before the reboot.. (I changed the path to userinit.exe as stated in first post)

Anyways thanks for your ideas, I'll try what I can do and report back with the results.


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## avisitor (Jul 13, 2008)

Remember the full backup (or at least system state) before you start.


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## fijosh (Jul 29, 2009)

Ok, so I've managed to get the letter back to how it was, but some minor problems occured...
Firstly, I wasn't able to run any *.msg files (services, defrag etc.).. I've had this same problem when the drive letter changed, so I was able to fix that, but now when I run for examle services.msc, I get a snap-in initialization error...
I fixed this as well when the drive letter changed and the OS was half-working, but I cannot remember how and I can't seem to find the solution... Anybody knows, how to fix it?

I found this solution, but my system variable PATH is:


> %SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\system32\WBEM;E:\Program Files\Intel\DMIX;E:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\binn\


 and it's still not working...

Oh and also I've got the PATH "user variable for user Administrator" like this:


> E:\Program Files\OpenVPN\bin


, but that shouldn't be the issue, right?


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## fijosh (Jul 29, 2009)

Oh never mind, hopefully I've found it... This helped me, I can now run and actually see the services 



> The Snap-in failed to initialize message can also happen when there is a problem with DLL registration. If nothing works, make sure the following files exist in your system folder (most likely C:\Windows\system32), and try the following:
> 
> Go to the Start menu, click Run, type CMD, hit ENTER and then type and enter the following lines:
> regsvr32 certmgr.dll
> ...


I hope it's going to work as it should now


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