Yesterday,

when I switched on my desktop and logged into my Windows 11 OS, I was welcomed by an empty desktop screen and a few ugly red messages telling me the D: drive on my computer is not there anymore.

I panicked.

Of course, I would panic! My most important photos are stored on multiple locations but everything else could be gone!!!

I have two drives on my PC, C: for holding the OS and the programs installation files and D: that keeps all my data. They are two separate SSDs as that makes a system running Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop much faster. Also, it is always good to have the data separately from files that don't change under my control, generally speaking. Those "Program Files".

I restarted multiple times, no luck.

I then read a few articles how to resolve similar issues. It was a bit calming to see there were other people reporting the same issue being resolved.

"Disk Management" scan drive function did not help either.

Removing the device and reinstalling the driver did not help either.

As a last step I did a System Restore from the latest stored point I had, a week ago. This didn't help either!

I checked the Windows Updates... nothing to update.

After several hours spent was I nowhere.

I ran out of options as I already did everything those "online experts" have been suggesting.

Then I decided to go check out for those hidden optional updates.

There were seven of them. One was obviously related to the sound driver but the others had quite cryptic names. Looking deeper... I could tell one of them is new motherboard firmware.

A sparkle of hope for me.

I initiated the updates and waited for them all to install successfully.

After the who-counts-which-one restart... wow, finally, everything looks back!

The only thing that did not work, strangely, was one of my browsers, Chrome, that I had to reinstall but bookmarks, logins, history, all was there waiting for me after that.

Once I assured everything looks back to normal I did that important thing:

BACKUP

Now the first things to undergo that important operation were my Lightroom catalogue, a humble ~200 MB file that stores the most of the changes I have made to my photos for about a decade, and a double encrypted and archived version of my password manager database file.

Next, some documents too. The day though, was looking brighter already. The thunder clouds have slipped away. The lesson?

As a wiseman had said once...

Backup the f*ck up.

Do those backups regularly.

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Have a great day!

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