HTTP Error 500.0 with default site set to different drive

I am working with IIS Manager 10 on WinServer 2019. I have set my default IIS website to a different drive (D:); Path: D:\FirstDir\SecondDir\ThirdDir\web. Whenever I try to browse the website from IIS (Browse *.80 (http)), or try to access the site via any web browser on (or off) the server hosting it, I get an HTTP Error 500.0 – Internal Server Error.

I’ve done everything I could think of to get around this; but what is strangest to me is if I copy the supporting home page HTML to C:\inetput\wwwroot then change the default IIS website to that path in IIS Manager, browsing will open that initial page; but I cannot browse any of the other links within the website from the home page (because the other links are still in the “D:\” path).

Now, here is what is strangest to me: If I then change the default IIS website path back to “D:\FirstDir\SecondDir\ThirdDir\web” and browse to the website without clearing any of the browser caches, I can still open the home page of my website; but I am also able to browse any of the other links from the home page and any other pages. I am sure that when I am browsing, after resetting to the “D-drive” path, I’m getting the home page I want because the C:\inetpub path is cached; what I don’t understand is why all of the other files are accessible – no HTTP 500 or other error occur. Of course, once I clear the browser cache and try to browse the website again I go right back to getting the 500 error.

The reason for my post here is that I am trying to resolve the HTTP 500 error. I’ve checked the logs and they provide little or no detail. I’ve tried enabling “Failed Request Tracing” but nothing gets written to the trace file. I have even gone so far as to add the \IIS-IUSR user to “D:” and all of the folders in the path.
Please Note all of the files I am using at this point are simple HTML.

A few other details that may be helpful from the error page Detailed Error Information:
Module: DefaultDocumentModule
Notification: ExecuteRequestHandler
Handler: StaticFile
Error Code: 0x80070002
Logon Method: Anonymous
Logon User: Anonymous

Can anyone please help me in trouble-shooting this?
One other point to note: the D: drive mentioned above is a VHD.