Dev Drive: WSL uses the "drive letter"-path instead of the "NTFS mount"-path

[anthonyvdotbe]

Windows Version

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.26100.3775]

WSL Version

2.7.1.0

Are you using WSL 1 or WSL 2?

• WSL 2
• WSL 1

Kernel Version

6.6.114.1-1

Distro Version

Ubuntu 22.04

Other Software

No response

Repro Steps

• create a Dev Drive
• mount it to path, e.g. C:\Users\antho\Repositories and give it a drive letter, e.g. E:
• in PowerShell, navigate to a folder within the Dev Drive using the mount path, e.g. C:\Users\antho\Repositories\tests\wsl
• run wsl

Expected Behavior

The WSL distribution opens in /mnt/c/Users/antho/Repositories/tests/wsl.

Actual Behavior

The WSL distribution opens in /mnt/e/tests/wsl.

Diagnostic Logs

No response

[github-actions]

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How to collect WSL logs

Download and execute collect-wsl-logs.ps1 in an administrative powershell prompt:

Invoke-WebRequest -UseBasicParsing "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/WSL/master/diagnostics/collect-wsl-logs.ps1" -OutFile collect-wsl-logs.ps1
Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force
.\collect-wsl-logs.ps1

The script will output the path of the log file once done.

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Once completed please upload the output files to this Github issue.

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[anthonyvdotbe]

WslLogs-2025-04-12_09-14-13.zip

[github-actions]

Diagnostic information

Detected appx version: 2.5.6.0

[anthonyvdotbe]

I think

WSL is unable to use the "NTFS mount"-path of a Dev Drive

is the root cause of most, if not all, unresolved Dev Drive-related issues (e.g., #12646 and #10852).

To reproduce such issues, it's crucial to only assign it a mount path (i.e., not assign it a drive letter), because otherwise WSL is able to fall back to the path with the drive letter and most issues (such as the ones mentioned above) will no longer reproduce.

[craigloewen-msft]

@anthonyvdotbe this is currently expected behaviour. I'll leave this bug open to track that WSL should work with dev drives mounted to an NTFS path.

[anthonyvdotbe]

Leaving a comment to prevent the dreaded inactivity bot from closing this issue: this still reproduces with the current version (I updated the OP accordingly).