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Windows 8 - Drive letter Not available in Disk Management

Issue - we have a system here that was configured to store the OS, Programs on SSD drive C: and the user data on RAID1 E: -- this has been working perfectly.  Until now when one of the RAID drives failed.  After replacing the drive, the Windows 8 OS assigns the drive letter F: to this RAID1 volume.  Since Win 8 expects to find the profiles, etc. on drive E: the system will only boot in Safe Mode.

From Disk Management the drive letter E: is not available so we can't change F: to E: - drive letter E: is not in use anywhere else and we have never used virtual drives on this unit.

The commands  -  Net Use E:/d    and   Mountvol E:/d  -  did not resolve the problem.  Neither did editing the Registry  \DosDevices\E:

Experts?
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becraig
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Have you rebooted the server in order to reclaim the drive letter ?


Also please be sure you are not using the drive letter on any other drives eg. CD ROM or some ISO that might be mounted using software.

Explore your computer, if E is assigned to anything please change the letter assigned to that drive in Computer management or dismount the ISO and proceed to update the drive letter assignment as needed.
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Yes we have rebooted and drive E: is not used anywhere else (logically or virtually)

UPDATE:   We have been able to get the proper drive assigned to E: by editing the Registry - we changed (Renamed)    \DosDevices\E:  to \DosDevices\L: (an unused letter) and then Renaming \DosDevices\F: to \DosDevices\E:  then  Renaming \DosDevices\L: to \DosDevices\F:   Confused yet?

Booting back up now -- will post additional info as it becomes available.
This is also known there is a technet article on this.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223188

It would however make sense to be able to identify the reason why you could not reclaim the drive letter.
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