Stack Exchange Network

Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow , the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.

Q&A for work

Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search.

Do not assign a drive letter or drive path

Windows Drive Manager

In which case is it usefull? In which cases shouldn't it be used?

Is it good for a drive, where I only want to copy data to and from in Explorer?

Timothy Lukas H.'s user avatar

  • Unclear : What are you doing? Some screenshots will help. –  harrymc Feb 24, 2019 at 12:31
  • @harrymc I've added an screenshot. I added an new external harddrive to my computer, which I will remove and add from time to time –  Timothy Lukas H. Feb 24, 2019 at 12:39

It means that it will not give it a drive letter. It will format the drive but it will not appear with a drive letter in Explorer.

If you want to copy files to the drive using Explorer then you will need to assign a letter to it. That you don't intend to use other programs to access it is irrelevant.

Whats the use of this function then?

You might want to assign a letter later, or intend to format the drive before moving the disk to another machine without using it on the current machine. It's just telling Windows that you don't want it visible yet for whatever reason.

Voy's user avatar

  • Thank you. Whats the use of this function then? When I can't use the drive at all, I can simply leave it "Unallocated" –  Timothy Lukas H. Feb 24, 2019 at 12:40
  • 3 You might want to assign a letter later, or intend to format the drive before moving the disk to another machine without using it on the current machine. It's just telling Windows that you don't want it visible yet for whatever reason. –  Mokubai ♦ Feb 24, 2019 at 12:43

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for browse other questions tagged hard-drive ..

  • The Overflow Blog
  • Who owns this tool? You need a software component catalog
  • Down the rabbit hole in the Stack Exchange network
  • Featured on Meta
  • Upcoming privacy updates: removal of the Activity data section and Google...
  • Changing how community leadership works on Stack Exchange: a proposal and...

Hot Network Questions

  • What's the relation between a language being managed and it's compiler being reversible?
  • How do I interpret low subgroup interaction and high efficacy in only one group?
  • Would a giant ball on earth roll towards the poles?
  • How can I duplicate an object in an animation?
  • Will there be another joint International Space Station (ISS) after the current is retired?
  • How to answer vague "tell me about x" questions from recruiter
  • Get string from within curly brackets
  • Can someone explain this choice of word?
  • A canal between two rivers
  • How do I write a sexist narrator without coming off as sexist myself?
  • Mercury in Centigrade
  • Are flights in fast jet streams more dangerous?
  • How far can we go in space?
  • Is the requirement of being aligned with the EU's foreign policy in order to join it written into law?
  • Can "innate" magic exist without fostering elitism?
  • What would you do with a new model of linear logic?
  • Are views logically redundant?
  • Difference between different definitions of diagram in a category
  • How do airlines make money or get some other kind of advantage when I book a flight using miles not earned from flying?
  • How does one perform induction on integers in both directions?
  • What's the phrase "10 years" used for in the sentence "I'm 10 years your senior"
  • 10-year UK visa ban. 15 years later and new citizenship
  • Sci-fi short story about a teacher who was being studied to learn how to get robots to replace teachers in classrooms
  • awk (and gawk) : how to avoid fatal error when 1 of the N input files is unreadable

what happens if you don't assign a drive letter

This browser is no longer supported.

Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.

Change a drive letter

  • 4 contributors
Applies To: Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019, and Windows Server 2016

If you want to change a drive letter assigned to a drive, or you have a drive that doesn't yet have a drive letter, use Disk Management to change it. You can also mount the drive in an empty folder so that it appears as a folder. For more information, see Mount a drive in a folder .

If you change the drive letter of a drive that already contains Windows or apps, apps might have trouble running or finding the drive. We suggest not changing the drive letter of a drive that already contains Windows or apps.

The following steps show how to change the drive letter.

Open Disk Management with administrator permissions.

In Disk Management, select and hold (or right-click) the volume on which you want to change or add a drive letter and select Change Drive Letter and Paths .

Screenshot showing the Disk Management window with the Change Drive Letter and Paths feature selected.

If you don't see the Change Drive Letter and Paths option or it's grayed out, the volume either isn't ready to receive a drive letter or it's unallocated and needs to be initialized . It might also be that the drive isn't accessible, which is the case with EFI system partitions and recovery partitions. If you've confirmed that your volume is formatted with a drive letter that you can access but you're still unable to change it, that's beyond the scope of this article. We suggest contacting Microsoft Support or the manufacturer of your PC for more help.

To change the drive letter, select Change . To add a drive letter if the drive doesn't already have one, select Add .

Screenshot of the Change Drive Letter and Paths dialog.

Select the new drive letter and choose OK . Then select Yes when prompted about how programs that rely on the drive letter might not run correctly.

Screenshot of the Change Drive Letter or Path dialog that shows how to assign a new drive letter.

Coming soon: Throughout 2024 we will be phasing out GitHub Issues as the feedback mechanism for content and replacing it with a new feedback system. For more information see: https://aka.ms/ContentUserFeedback .

Submit and view feedback for

Additional resources

MiniTool

  • Partition Disk

[Solved] Windows 10/11 Not Assigning Drive Letter Automatically?

What is drive letter.

A drive letter is a single alphabetic character ranging from A to Z that is used to designate a storage device in DOS (Disk Operating System) and Windows systems. In general, every drive in your system will be assigned a unique drive letter, making it easier to identify and locate.

About Windows Not Assigning Drive Letter Automatically

When you are attempting to connect a USB flash drive or other external storage device to the computer, your Windows will always automatically assign a drive letter to its partition. However, this process will not always succeed and sometimes you may notice Windows cannot assign drive letter to partition on the connected disk.

The “Windows 10/Windows 11 not assigning drive letter” issue can happen due to various reasons, such as the incompatible file system, outdated Windows, virus infection, and so on. To solve this issue, some effective methods are listed in this post. Simply follow them to sort out your problem if you face the same issue.

Note: Before troubleshooting the issue with advanced solutions, you’d better make sure that you have a proper Windows version supporting automatically assigning drive letters and that the file system of the connected drive is compatible with your computer. Besides, you can run a specified scan to check if there is a virus preventing Windows from assigning drive letters.

5 Ways to Format a Hard Drive on Windows 11/10

Please don’t worry if you don’t know how to format a hard drive on Windows 11. This page shows you some effective disk formatting methods.

Method 1: Start the Virtual Disk Service

The Virtual Disk service plays an important role in the disk management of your computer. If it is disabled, certain disk problems may come out, including the “Windows not assigning drive letter” issue. Therefore, once you run into this issue, you’d better check if the Virtual Disk service is enabled. If not, follow the guide below to start it.

Tip: If the service has been started, you can try right-clicking it and select Restart to re-enable it. This may sometimes help solve problems.

Step 1 : Press Windows + R to open the Run dialog.

Step 2 : Type services.msc in the text box and then click OK to enter the Services window.

Step 3 : Scroll down to find Virtual Disk in the right panel. Then right-click this service and select Properties .

Step 4 : In the next window, set Startup type as Automatic . Then click the Start button to run this service.

Set Startup type to Automatic and start the service

Step 5 : At last, click Apply and OK to save the changes. You can now safely eject the external hard drive from your PC and then reconnect it to see if the “Windows 10 not assigning drive letter” issue persists.

Further reading:

If you are unable to start the Virtual Disk service in the Services app, then you can try the following instructions.

  • Type cmd in the Run dialog box.
  • Press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open Command Prompt with administrative privileges.
  • Type sc query vds and then press Enter to obtain and display detailed information about the Virtual Disk
  • If the state is STOPPED , type net start vds and press Enter to enable this service.
  • After that, reconnect the device to see if it has a drive letter.

Start the Virtual Disk service

Method 2: Enable Automatic Mounting of New Volumes

When you connect an external hard drive to your computer, the system will automatically mount the added drive and assign a drive letter to it by default with the Automatic mounting of new volumes ( automount ) feature. If you disable this feature accidentally, you are likely to find Windows 10 or Windows 11 not assigning drive letter when you connect a new drive to the PC.

Tip: If you want to learn more about disabling or enabling automount, you can pay attention to this post: How to Disable or Enable Auto-Mounting of New Disks and Drives .

In this case, you can try to get rid of the “Windows not assigning drive letter” issue by enabling automount. Here’s a full guide on how to do this.

Step 1 : Run Command Prompt as an administrator.

Step 2 : Type diskpart and press Enter to open the Diskpart utility.

Step 3 : After that, type automount and press Enter to check the status of the automount feature.

Step 4 : If a message saying “ Automatic mounting of new volumes disabled ” shows up on the screen, you should then type automount enable and press Enter to execute this command.

Enable automount

Step 5 : Exit Command Prompt and connect the external drive back to your PC to check if your Windows will automatically assign a drive letter.

Method 3: Disable Hidden and No Default Drive Letter

If the Hidden and No Default Drive Letter attributes are enabled, you may experience the “Windows 11 or Windows 10 not assigning drive letter” issue as well. On this occasion, you can attempt to repair this issue by disabling the specific attributes. To do this, follow the steps below.

Step 1 : Make sure the problematic storage device is connected to your computer. Then run Command Prompt as an administrator.

Step 2 : In the elevated Command Prompt window, type diskpart and press Enter .

Step 3 : After that, type the following commands one by one and press Enter after each to check the related attributes of the target drive.

  • select disk N ( N represents the disk number of the connected storage device)
  • list partition
  • select partition X (Replace X with the number of the partition on the storage device)
  • attributes volume

List attributes associated with the target drive

Step 4 : If the Hidden and No Default Drive Letter attributes show Yes , you should execute the following commands to disable them.

  • attributes volume clear Hidden
  • attributes volume clear NoDefaultDriveLetter

Step 5 : Once done, close Command Prompt and restart your PC to check if the “Windows not assigning drive letter” issue disappears.

Method 4: Assign the Drive Letter Manually

If Windows cannot assign drive letter to partition automatically yet after you apply the above methods, you can try assigning a drive letter manually. In this part, this post summarizes several ways that can help you complete the drive letter assignment. Just pick one according to your preference.

Way 1: Via Disk Management

Disk Management is a Windows built-in utility that helps you do basic management of your partitions and disks including adding or changing a drive letter. To assign a drive letter manually with Disk Management, you can follow the given steps.

Step 1 : Right-click the Start icon and select Disk Management .

Step 2 : Right-click the partition on the connected disk. Then select Change Drive Letter and Paths .

Step 3 : In the pop-up window, click the Add button to continue.

Step 4 : Select Assign the following drive letter and then choose a suitable drive letter from the drop-down menu.

Step 5 : After that, click OK to save the change.

Add drive letter using Disk Management

Way 2: Via Diskpart

Diskpart is also a useful tool that can help you assign a drive letter to your partition. The following are details about this operation.

Step 1 : Open the Run dialog. Then type diskpart in the text box and press Enter to run Diskpart.

Step 2 : To assign a drive letter, you should run the following commands one by one.

  • select disk N ( N refers to the disk number of the connected disk)
  • select partition X ( X is the number of the partition on the target disk)
  • assign letter=G (You can replace G with the drive letter you prefer)

Assign drive letter manually with Diskpart

Tip: In addition to the above commands, you can try assigning the drive with these commands as well:

  • list volume
  • select volume * ( * represents the number of the target partition)
  • assign letter=G

Diskpart Unassign Drive Letter in Windows 11/10 [Full Guide]

Way 3: Via MiniTool Partition Wizard

Although both Disk Management and Diskpart are helpful utilities allowing you to assign a drive letter effectively, they may randomly trouble you with unexpected issues, such as Change Drive Letter and Paths greyed out , Diskpart has encountered an error , and so on. In such cases, it’s recommended that you take advantage of third-party disk partition software.

As for this, MiniTool Partition Wizard is a great choice. It’s a professional partition manager that provides a wide range of features related to partitions and disks. For instance, it enables you to create/format/resize partitions, change the drive letter, recover data/partitions, migrate OS to SSD/HDD , etc.

Here, MiniTool Partition Wizard introduces how to assign a drive letter step by step. You can have a try.

Step 1 : Download and install this program on your PC. Then launch it to get into the main interface.

MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Click to Download 100% Clean & Safe

Step 2 : Right-click the partition on the target disk and then select Change Letter . Alternatively, you can highlight the target partition and select Change Drive Letter from the left action panel.

Select Change Drive Letter

Step 3 : Select a preferred drive letter and then click OK .

Choose a drive letter and click OK

Step 4 : Finally, click Apply to execute this operation.

Click Apply

Click to Tweet: What to do when the “Windows not assigning drive letter” issue comes out? If you have no clue, I’d like to share this post with you. A couple of feasible solutions are listed in this post. Click to Tweet

Bottom Line

All the methods mentioned above are available. When you run into the “Windows not assigning drive letter” issue, you can try to fix it with the above methods. If you have any problems with this issue, you can leave a message in the comment area.

If you encounter any problems while using MiniTool Partition Wizard, you can contact us via [email protected] . We’ll reply to you as soon as possible.

About The Author

Yamila

Position: Columnist

Is a Drive Letter Not Available on Windows? Here's Why, and How to Fix It

There are a few reasons why you can't assign a specific letter to a drive on Windows. Here's why.

Seeing the error message "drive letter not available" when accessing or creating a new storage drive can be very frustrating. The reason for the error isn't always immediately obvious, but it is rarely unsolvable.

Here are the most common causes for an unavailable drive letter on Windows, and ways you can fix the problem.

What Are Drive Letters in Windows?

Any new storage drive, volume, or partition you add to your computer (especially if you add a partition to your hard drive for optimum performance ) needs to have a letter assigned before it will work. It is basically a label, a way for the system and the user to recognize different storage spaces.

If a drive or partition does not have a letter assigned, it will be inaccessible to you and the software and services that may need to see the files in that space.

Drive letters, occasionally called device letters, run alphabetically from A to Z. These days, A and B are rarely used, and we've covered before why local drives on Windows start from "C" .

New storage devices will be automatically assigned the first unused letter when connected. This automatic process occasionally fails or gets blocked by a conflict in the system settings.

Upgrading from an older version of Windows to a new version can sometimes cause drive letters to be reassigned. Let's say that your applications all point to a particular drive, but that drive is now assigned a different letter. Things will get frustrating quickly if you can't select the letter you need.

Reasons Why Drive Letters Are Unavailable

As mentioned, there are several possible reasons why you might see the "Drive letter not available" error. The most common reasons include:

The Letter Is In Use by a Hidden Removable Drive

When you connect a removable drive, such as a USB thumb drive, a drive letter will be assigned to it. Sometimes even after the removable drive is disconnected, the drive letter remains associated with it. In this case, it will be unavailable, and you'll see the error message.

The Letter Is Permanently Assigned to Another Storage Volume

It is possible to permanently assign a drive letter to a particular partition or drive. This also includes optical devices like the CD/DVD drive. If you have previously done this, the drive letter will no longer be available to choose from when setting up a new partition or drive.

How to Make Drive Letters Available for Use

Both of the causes for the error detailed above are fixable. You can download free software to help with reassigning the letters. But you can also use the Windows Registry Editor to solve the problem yourself. Here's how.

  • Open the Run dialog by pressing Win + R .
  • Type Regedit and click Ok to open the Registry Editor.

Mounted devices in the Windows Registry Editor

  • In the list of assigned devices, right-click on the one you want to change and select Rename .
  • Change the drive letter to any other unused letter to free up the one being used.
  • Close the Registry Editor and restart your computer. You should then be able to assign the unused letter as you wish.

If you prefer not to mess around with the Registry directly, you can use something like AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard . The free version has limited tools but will let you reassign drive letters.

  • Open the Partition Assistant app and find the drive you want to reassign in the main window.
  • Right-click on the drive and select Advanced > Change Drive Letter from the menu.

Changing a drive letter in third-party software

  • Click Ok and confirm the operation on the next screen. It may take a few seconds to process the change.
  • You can then return to the main screen, find the drive to which you want to assign that released letter, and repeat the process.

Getting a Drive Letter Back on Windows

Although frustrating, seeing the "Drive Letter Not Available" error is rarely due to an unsolvable issue. In most cases, you just need to force the change using the Registry Editor or a bit of third-party software. Either solution is fast and easy and should see your desired drive letter free to use quickly.

How to assign permanent letters to drives on Windows 10

You can assign drive letters manually, and in this guide, we show you how on Windows 10.

what happens if you don't assign a drive letter

On Windows 10, when connecting a removable storage device or an internal hard drive, the system detects and assigns a drive letter automatically to make it usable. However, when reconnecting an external drive (such as a USB flash drive or SD or microSD cards), the system can end up assigning a different letter, which can be annoying.

If you want to see the same drive letter on a particular device, you can manually assign a permanent letter to any drive connected to your computer, and on Windows 10 , you can do this in at least three different ways, using Disk Management, Command Prompt, or PowerShell.

Using this approach will prevent Windows 10 from assigning a new letter or trying to set a letter already in use, which can cause conflicts. Also, it helps to select a drive letter that makes more sense to you.

In this Windows 10 guide, we walk you through several methods to manually assign a permanent letter to a drive, as long as you're connecting the drive to the same device and the letter isn't already in use.

How to assign a drive letter using Disk Management

How to assign a drive letter using command prompt, how to assign a drive letter using powershell.

To manage drive letters with the Disk Management tool, use these steps:

  • Open Start .
  • Search for Create and format hard disk partitions and click the top result to open the Disk Management experience.
  • Right-click the drive and select the Change Drive Letter and Paths option.
  • Click the Change button.
  • Select the Assign the following drive letter option.
  • Use the drop-down menu to assign a new drive letter. Quick tip: To avoid the system trying to assign the same letter to another drive, it's a good idea to start adding letters in backward order. For instance, instead of using D, E or F, it better to start with Z, Y or X when assigning a new letter.
  • Click the OK button.
  • Click the OK button again.

Once you complete these steps, the drive will permanently retain the assigned letter, even after reconnecting it. However, if you connect the drive to another device, it may receive a different letter.

While the easiest way to assign a new drive letter is to use Disk Management, you can also use DiskPart in Command Prompt to perform the same task.

To assign a drive letter using Command Prompt, use these steps:

  • Search for Command Prompt , right-click the result, and then select the Run as administrator option.
  • Type the following command to start DiskPart and press Enter : diskpart
  • Type the following command to list all the available volumes and press Enter : list volume
  • Type the following command to select the volume (drive) to assign a new letter and press Enter: select volume 3 In the command, make sure to change "3" to the number that represents the drive on your device.
  • Type the following command to assign a new drive letter, and press Enter : assign letter=Z The command assigns the letter "Z" to the drive assuming it's available. However, you need to make sure to change the letter for the one that you want to use.

After completing these steps, similar to Disk Management, every time you reconnect the storage to the same device, Windows 10 should assign the same letter automatically.

Alternatively, you can also use PowerShell to change a drive letter on Windows 10 using these steps:

  • Search for PowerShell , right-click the result, and then select the Run as administrator option.
  • Type the following command to list the available drives and press Enter : Get-Disk
  • Type the following command to assign a permanent letter to the drive and press Enter : Get-Partition -DiskNumber 1 | Set-Partition -NewDriveLetter Z In the command, make sure to change "1" to the number that represents the drive that you want to modify, and change "Z" for the new letter that you want to use.

Once you complete the steps, the drive will be accessible through File Explorer using the letter that you assigned, and Windows 10 won't try to change it.

Updated March 7, 2019: We revised this guide to make sure it's current with the latest version of Windows 10.

More Windows 10 resources

For more helpful articles, coverage, and answers to common questions about Windows 10, visit the following resources:

  • Windows 10 on Windows Central – All you need to know
  • Windows 10 help, tips, and tricks
  • Windows 10 forums on Windows Central

Get the Windows Central Newsletter

All the latest news, reviews, and guides for Windows and Xbox diehards.

Mauro Huculak

Mauro Huculak is technical writer for WindowsCentral.com. His primary focus is to write comprehensive how-tos to help users get the most out of Windows 10 and its many related technologies. He has an IT background with professional certifications from Microsoft, Cisco, and CompTIA, and he's a recognized member of the Microsoft MVP community.

  • 2 7 Nightingale tips and tricks for beginners I wish I knew before playing the game
  • 3 Microsoft brings Wi-Fi 7 support to Windows 11 with latest preview build, coming to everyone later this year
  • 4 New Helldivers 2 patch takes care of all those AFK queue dodgers, but one of its worst bugs still remains
  • 5 This PC comes without memory, storage, or an operating system, and it's the best thing to happen to laptops this year

what happens if you don't assign a drive letter

  • iPhone 15 Plus vs. Pro Max
  • 3 Key Tech Trends to Watch in 2024

How to Change a Drive Letter

Don't like the letters assigned to your drives in Windows? Change them!

what happens if you don't assign a drive letter

  • Emporia State University

what happens if you don't assign a drive letter

  • The Ultimate Laptop Buying Guide

What to Know

  • Open Disk Management. Locate the drive you want to change. Right-click and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths > Change .
  • Select the drive letter you want to assign from Assign the following drive letter . Then select OK and choose Yes .

The letters assigned to your hard drives, optical drives, and USB drives in Windows are not fixed. Use the Disk Management tool in Windows to change drive letters. These steps apply to Windows XP and newer versions of Windows .

How to Change Drive Letters in Windows

Follow these steps to change the driver letters in any version of Windows.

You can't change the drive letter of the partition that Windows is installed onto. On most computers, this is usually the C drive.

Open Disk Management , the tool in Windows that lets you manage drive letters, among [many] other things.

In Windows 11/10/8, Disk Management is also available from the Power User Menu ( WIN + X  keyboard shortcut) and is probably the quickest way to open it. You can also start Disk Management from the Command Prompt in any version of Windows, but starting it via Computer Management is probably best for most of you.

Locate from the list at the top, or from the map at the bottom, the drive you want to change the drive letter of.

If you're not sure that the drive you're looking at is really the one you want to change the drive letter for, you can right-click or tap-and-hold the drive and then choose Explore . If you need to, look through the folders to see if that's the right drive.

Right-click or tap-and-hold the drive and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths .

Select Change .

If you've selected the primary drive by accident, some versions of Windows will display a message that reads Windows cannot modify the drive letter of your system volume or boot volume.

Choose the drive letter you want Windows to assign to this storage device by selecting it from the Assign the following drive letter drop-down box.

You don't need to worry if the drive letter is already being used by another drive because Windows hides any letters you can't use.

Select OK .

Choose Yes to the Some programs that rely on drive letters might not run correctly. Do you want to continue? question.

If you have software installed to this drive, it might stop working properly after changing the drive letter. See details on this in the section below.

Once the drive letter change is complete, which usually only takes a second or two, you're welcome to close any open Disk Management or other windows.

The drive letter is different from the volume label. You can change the volume label using similar steps .

If You Have Programs Not on the Main Drive

Changing drive letter assignments for drives that have software installed to them may cause the software to stop working. This isn't quite as common with newer programs and apps but if you have an old program, especially if you're still using Windows XP or Windows Vista, this is likely to be a problem.

Fortunately, most of us don't have software installed to drives other than the primary drive (typically the C drive), but if you do, consider this your warning that you might need to reinstall the software after changing the drive letter.

No Changes for the Operating System Drive

You cannot change the drive letter of the drive that the Windows operating system is installed on. If you'd like Windows to exist on a drive other than C , or whatever it happens to be now, you can make that happen but you'll have to complete a clean install of Windows to do it. Unless you have a pressing need to have Windows exist on a different drive letter, we don't recommend going through all that trouble.

Change, Don't Switch

There's no built-in way to switch drive letters between two drives in Windows. Instead, use a drive letter that you don't plan on using as a temporary "holding" letter during the drive letter change process.

For example, let's say you'd like to swap Drive A for Drive B . Start by changing Drive A's letter to one that you don't plan on using (like X ), then Drive B's letter to Drive A's original one, and finally Drive A's letter to Drive B's original one.

Using the Command Prompt

You can also change the drive letter from Command Prompt . It's not as easy as using Disk Management and you can't see right away which letters are available to choose, but it is completely doable with the diskpart command.

Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day

  • The 34 Best Free Data Destruction Tools of 2024
  • How to Format a Hard Drive in Windows
  • What Is a Volume Label of a Drive?
  • 10 Best Free Disk Partition Software Tools
  • How to Open Disk Management
  • How to Open Disk Management From Command Prompt
  • How to Partition a Hard Drive (Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, +)
  • What Is a Mapped Drive?
  • How to Delete System Error Memory Dump Files
  • How to Check Free Hard Drive Space in Windows
  • What Is the NTFS File System?
  • How to Scan a Hard Drive Using 'Error Checking'
  • How to Change the Default Download Location in Windows 11
  • What Is a Partition?
  • AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition v10.3.0 Review
  • How to Use the Format Command to Write Zeros to a Hard Drive
  • Accessories
  • Entertainment
  • PCs & Components
  • Wi-Fi & Networks
  • All Coupon Codes
  • eBay Coupon
  • HP Coupon Code
  • OnePlus Coupon
  • Samsung Promo Code
  • Microsoft Coupon
  • Dell Coupon Code
  • Motley Fool Discount
  • GoPro Promo Code
  • Starz Promo Code
  • AT&T Wireless Promo Code
  • Newsletters
  • Digital Magazine – Subscribe
  • Digital Magazine – Log in
  • Best laptops
  • Laptop deals
  • Desktop PC deals
  • Best monitors

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn't affect our editorial independence .

You can change drive letters, but know the risk of doing so

Luke Lindsay wants to change his drive letters. But he’s worried about the problems it may cause.

Drive letters were part of the PC environment before they were called PCs. My first computer ran CP/M , and the two floppy drives were A: and B:. We’re still using drive letters today, but they’re more pliable—and they can also create more problems.

[Have a tech question? Ask PCWorld Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector. Send your query to [email protected] .]

As a test before writing this article, I changed my D: partition—the one where I keep my library files —to F:. Nothing worked. Windows couldn’t find my files. It couldn’t run Skype. Carbonite froze. Even my wallpaper went black. Changing the drive back to D: and finding everything good again was a big relief.

Windows has a good reason for giving you a stern warning before it changes a drive letter.

1009 warning

The problems come when Windows and other programs expect a file in a particular place. If Microsoft Word expects my normal.dotx template file to be at D:LincolnAppDataRoamingMicrosoftTemplates, and it discovers that there’s no D: at all, it won’t know to look in F:LincolnAppDataRoamingMicrosoftTemplates.

Obviously, changing drive C:’s letter would be a disaster. Windows wouldn’t be able to find itself.

There are drives whose letter you can safely change. If a partition contains only data files that you rarely use, changing the drive letter may cause an occasional annoyance but rarely anything worse. External drives’ letters can almost always be changed without problems.

To change a drive letter, use the search tool in your version of Windows to search for partitions (don’t miss that  s ). Select Create and format hard disk partitions.

This brings up the Disk Management program. Right-click the partition you want to change, and select  Change Drive Letter and Paths. 

1009 disk management

In the resulting dialog box, click Change. Then select an available drive letter and click OK.

And, of course, click  Yes  at the warning…assuming you’re sure that it won’t cause a disaster.

Coupon Codes

  • Hotwire Promo Code Exclusive: Save up to 60% on Hot Rate Hotel and Car bookings
  • Booking.com Promo Code Create an account at Booking.com to enjoy up to 50% OFF stays
  • Motley Fool Discount Motley Fool discount: 60% Off Stock Advisor
  • eBay Coupon eBay Best Price Guarantee: Save 10% on any item
  • Samsung Promo Code Samsung discount code for +5% Off sitewide

TechRepublic

Account information.

what happens if you don't assign a drive letter

Share with Your Friends

How to assign a drive letter in Windows 10

Your email has been sent

Image of Bill Detwiler

When you connect a new drive to your PC, Windows automatically assigns the next available letter after C, which is normally used for your system drive. So an external hard drive or USB thumb drive could end up as D, E, F, or whatever, depending on how many drive letters are already being used.

This is all well and good, but what if you want to assign the drive a letter? Maybe you want to use M for your music files or X for your top-secret X-Files. Here’s how in Windows 10.

  • Ensure that the drive you’re relettering isn’t in use and that no files from that drive are open.
  • Right-click on the Start button.
  • Click Disk Management to open the Disk Management console.
  • Right-click the volume that has the drive letter you want to change.
  • Click Change Drive Letter And Paths.
  • Click the Change button.
  • Choose from a list of available drive letters. (Don’t use A or B, which have historically been reserved for floppy drives and can sometime confuse older software.)
  • Click Yes if a popup windows appears asking if you really want to do this.
  • Close the Disk Management console.

You may need to restart your machine for the change to take effect, but once you do the drive will use the new letter.

More Windows tips…

  • How to turn on or off hibernate in Windows 10
  • Regain hard disk space by using Windows Update Cleanup in Windows 7 and 8.x
  • Restore a Windows XP backup in Windows 8
  • How to replace SkyDrive with Libraries in Windows 8.1
  • Pro tip: Use an optical Recovery Drive in Windows 8.1

Subscribe to the Developer Insider Newsletter

From the hottest programming languages to commentary on the Linux OS, get the developer and open source news and tips you need to know. Delivered Tuesdays and Thursdays

Create a TechRepublic Account

Get the web's best business technology news, tutorials, reviews, trends, and analysis—in your inbox. Let's start with the basics.

* - indicates required fields

Sign in to TechRepublic

Lost your password? Request a new password

Reset Password

Please enter your email adress. You will receive an email message with instructions on how to reset your password.

Check your email for a password reset link. If you didn't receive an email don't forgot to check your spam folder, otherwise contact support .

Welcome. Tell us a little bit about you.

This will help us provide you with customized content.

Want to receive more TechRepublic news?

You're all set.

Thanks for signing up! Keep an eye out for a confirmation email from our team. To ensure any newsletters you subscribed to hit your inbox, make sure to add [email protected] to your contacts list.

How-To Geek

Why does windows still use letters for drives.

Why does Windows still use drive letters? After all, macOS and Linux don't. (And yes, you can even mount drives at directory locations---Unix style---on modern versions of Windows.)

Quick Links

Where do drive letters come from, the unix alternative: mount points, you can access drives on windows without letters, why does windows still use letters.

Windows typically assigns your system drive the letter C: and gives different letters to other storage devices. That's unusual---macOS and Linux don't use letters. Windows can access drives without letters, so why does it use them?

C: and D: drive letters in a Command Prompt window.

Like many things in Windows---such as, how it uses  backward instead of forward slashes ---drive letters date back to the days of MS-DOS (in fact, even a bit earlier). This is the reason the Windows system drive uses the letter C:--- A: and B: were reserved for floppy disk drives.

Drive letters were carried over to MS-DOS from CP/M, an older operating system. They offered a way to access logical and physical storage devices containing files. To access a file named README.TXT on the second floppy disk drive, you'd just type B:README.TXT.

The need for drive letters is apparent on the command line. If there were no drive letters, how would you quickly specify paths to files on different devices? This was the system MS-DOS inherited, and Microsoft has stuck with it since.

While drive letters might seem less important now that we're using graphical desktops and can simply click on icons, they do still matter. Even if you only access your files through graphical tools, the programs you use have to refer to those files with a file path in the background---and they use drive letters to do so.

Related: Why Windows Uses Backslashes and Everything Else Uses Forward Slashes

Drive letters aren't the only possible solution, however. Apple's macOS, Linux, and other Unix-like operating systems use a different method of accessing different partitions and storage devices.

Rather than being accessible at a letter, a device can be made accessible at a directory path in the file system. For example, on Linux, external storage devices were traditionally mounted at /mount. So, rather than accessing a DVD drive at D:, you might access it at /mount/dvd.

This goes down to the "root" of the file system. Linux and macOS don't have drive letters, so the base part of the file system isn't a letter. Instead, they have a root directory, which is /. The system drive is "mounted" (made available) at / instead of C:\. Other drives can be mounted at arbitrary folders---if you want your home directory stored on a different drive, you can mount it at /home. The contents of the drive will then be accessible at /home.

USB drive mounted as a folder on Windows 10.

So why can't you mount drives on Windows like this, making them accessible at arbitrary paths instead of letters? Why can't you access your USB drive at C:\USB\, for example?

Well, you can! Modern versions of Windows now let you mount storage devices at a folder path , too. This option is available in the Disk Management tool . Right-click a partition on a drive, select "Change Drive Letters and Paths," and then click "Add." You can use the "Mount in the following empty NTFS folder" option to make a storage device available at a folder path just as you can on Unix-like operating systems.

To do this, though, you'll have to mount the drive at a folder path on an NTFS volume---and that NTFS volume must be mounted at a drive letter.

Mounting a drive at an empty NTFS folder on Windows 10.

So, even if you did run out of drive letters from A: to Z:, you'd still be able to mount additional storage devices and access them in Windows. You're not just limited to 26 drives on modern versions of Windows.

You can also change which drives use which letters from Disk Management---although, you can't change your C: drive to another letter. Even changing a letter like D: to E: can cause problems. For example, if you have a shortcut pointing at drive D: and the files are suddenly at E:, the shortcut will break.

This PC view showing C: and D: drives on Windows 10

If drive letters (like C:) are an ancient artifact and Windows can work without them, why does it still use them?

The reason is simple and explains many Windows design decisions---backward compatibility. Early versions of Windows had to be compatible with MS-DOS software, and modern versions of Windows must be compatible with older Windows software. Drive letters just keep getting carried forward.

After all, things are enough of a mess with just drive letters! Technically, it's possible to install Windows so that C: isn't your system drive. You could install it to drive G:\ and have G:\Windows, G:\Users, and G:\Program Files folders. C: doesn't have to be your primary drive, and this is officially supported by Windows. However, many Windows applications assume you're using a C: drive, and you'll have problems if you aren't. And if Windows applications can't imagine you not using C: as your system drive letter, imagine how they'll break if you don't have any drive letters at all.

You might wonder why Windows still displays drive letters. After all, File Explorer could hide them and just show the words "System Drive" or "USB Flash Drive," but File Explorer already shows simple descriptions like that, and sometimes, you might want to know the drive letter. Many applications show paths like D:\Folder\File.doc.

Sure, Microsoft could invest in compatibility software that redirects all requests for C: to another path. But rather than throwing drive letters away and spending a bunch of time fixing things that would break as a result, Microsoft chooses to stick with drive letters.

WebNots

Home » Tech Tips » Windows » How to Assign or Change Drive Letter in Windows 11?

How to Assign or Change Drive Letter in Windows 11?

Windows by default uses C drive (C:) for hosting system and application files. You can choose different drives like D: instead of C: while installing Windows on your computer. Similarly, it is also possible to manually change the installed app’s location , though generally users install apps on C: drive. Did you anytime think of changing the existing drive letters in your system? Here is how you can do that in Windows 11 PC.

Default Drive Name Assignments in Windows 11

Let us say, you have two partitions C: and D: volumes on your hard disk. Here is how the default drive letter assignment in Windows work:

  • A: – floppy disk drive for IBM computers (obsolete)
  • B: – floppy drive for MS-DOS and Windows computers (obsolete)
  • C: – Windows and app installation files
  • D: – storage space partition
  • E: – the letter after your storage partition for CD drive (if CD/DVD drive is available)
  • F: onwards – removable storage disks like USB and external hard disks

When you have more partitions on the hard drive, system will use the next drive letters like E: or F: when you insert an external drive. For example, when you have C: and D: drives on your hard disk and insert an USB drive , it will take the letter E: or later.

Changing Drive Letters in Windows 11

It is not necessary to live with the assigned drive letters forever on your system. You can either reduce / increase the drive’s space and assign new letters or simply change an existing drive’s letter. For example, you have 400GB D: drive which you can simply change to F: drive. Alternatively, you can divide it into 200GB + 200GB drives and name them as G: and H: drives.

Windows 11 makes it easy to change the drive letters from the Settings app without using registry or changing system files. However, you can also do the same from Computer Management as with the case in Windows 10 .

1. Change Drive Letter from Windows 11 Settings

If you want to change the assigned drive letters for any partition on your hard disk except C drive then this is the option you should proceed with.

  • Press “Win + I” keys or use Windows Search to find Windows Settings app.
  • Once you are in the Settings app, go to “System” tab and then click on “Storage” option.

Go to System Storage Settings

  • Go down to the bottom of the “Storage” settings section and click on “Advanced storage settings” available under “Storage management” section.

Advanced Storage Settings

  • This will expand the section and click on “Disks & volumes” option.

Go to Disks and Volumes

  • The “Disks and volumes” section will show all your existing drives and click on the one you want to change the letter name. it will show two buttons – “Explore” and “Properties” and click on the “Properties” button.

Open Disk Volume Properties

  • On the next screen, you can see the buttons for “Change label” and “Change drive letter”.

Select Change Drive Letter

  • Click “Change drive letter” button and select your favorite letter from the dropdown to assign.

Change Label for C Drive

The dropdown will show all letters except C: and the current volume. In the above example, we want to change the D: drive and the system shows A to Z letters except C and D. Since D is the current volume, it is not shown in the list. But C is not shown because it is a system volume partition and you cannot change the drive letter for C. You will not see “Change drive letter” button when selecting properties of C drive. However, you can assign A and B for drive letters which were once reserved only for floppy disks. Since floppy disk is obsolete Windows allows you to assign those reserved drive letters A and B also.

2. Change Drive Letter from Disk Management in Windows 11

Though changing drive letter is easy with Windows Settings, it does not allow changing C drive letter. You can use Disk Management app for changing any drive letter with additional features.

  • Press “Win + R” keys to Run prompt .
  • Type compmgmt.msc and press “OK” button.

Open Disk Management App in Windows

  • This will open Computer Management app and select “Disk Management” from the sidebar available under “Storage” section.
  • You will see all the drives available on your computer and select C or D or any drive that you want to assign a new letter.
  • Go to “Action > All Tasks > Change Drive Letter and Paths…” menu.

Change Drive Letter in Disk Management

  • On the pop-up that appears, click on “Change…” button.

Select Change Button

  • Click on the dropdown against “Assign the following drive letter:” option.
  • Select your favorite letter and click “OK” button.

Assign New Drive Letter

Here you will see all the drive letters except D which is already assigned to another partition volume on the hard disk. Though it is possible to change drive letter for C, we do not recommend as it can affect the installed programs on your computer. Most programs by default install under “Program Files” section in C drive. Changing the drive letter may affect the installed programs and they may stop working. In such a case, you need to uninstall and reinstall the program on the new drive again. This will be a big task if multiple programs stopped working. Therefore, choose the system drive when you clean install Windows first time and stick with that. If you are using preinstalled Windows on C drive, then continue to use that without changing. You can change all other drives using Disk Management or Windows Settings app.

If you want to create parition, select the volume and right click on it. From the menu, select “Shrink Volume” option and select the reduced size for your volume. The remaining size will become unallocated for which you can assign a new label and letter as explained above. Learn more about how to create disk paritions in Windows computer .

Assigning Drive Letter to Removable Disks

As mentioned, Windows will assign the available drive letter for removable disks after the current partition volumes. The problem is when you have multiple removable disks, the assigned letters will change every time which may confuse you. The good part is that you can assign a drive letter as explained above for your removable USB or external hard disk. Windows will remember the assigned letter and use the same whenever you insert the external drive. However, make sure to use the letters clearly away from the current and CD/DVD drives. For example, you can use X or Y or even A or B which are generally not assigned.

About Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WebNots are team of experts who love to build websites, find tech hacks and share the learning with community.

You also might be interested in

Fix iPhone Storage Full Issue

How to Fix iPhone Storage Full Issue?

Earlier Apple used to sell iPhone with as low as[...]

How to Backup and Restore Mac Using Time Machine?

Guide on How to Backup and Restore Mac Using Time Machine?

Regularly backing up your Mac is an important task you[...]

6 Facts to Know Before Buying Hosting Plan

6 Facts to Check Before Buying Web Hosting Plans

Launching a new site or migrating to new host, here are the 6 facts you should know before buying a hosting plan to avoid later frustration.

DOWNLOAD EBOOKS

  • SEO Guide for Beginners
  • WordPress SEO PDF Guide
  • Weebly SEO PDF Guide
  • Alt Code Emoji Shortcuts PDF
  • ALT Code Shortcuts PDF
  • View All eBooks

TRENDING TECH ARTICLES

  • ALT Code Shortcuts for Symbols
  • Fix Chrome Resolving Host Problem
  • Fix Slow Page Loading Issue in Google Chrome
  • View Webpage Source CSS and HTML in Google Chrome
  • Fix Safari Slow Loading Pages in macOS
  • Fix Windows WiFi Connection Issue
  • ROYGBIV or VIBGYOR Rainbow Color Codes
  • Fix I’m Not A Robot reCAPTCHA Issue in Google Search
  • Structure of HTTP Request and Response

POPULAR WEB TUTORIALS

  • Move WordPress Localhost Site to Live Server
  • Move Live WordPress Site to Localhost
  • Move WordPress Media Folder to Subdomain
  • Fix WooCommerce Ajax Loading Issue
  • Create a Free Weebly Blog
  • Edit Weebly Source Code HTML and CSS
  • Add Scroll To Top Button in Weebly
  • Add Table in Weebly Site
  • How to Add Advanced Data Table Widget in Weebly?
  • Up to $500 Free Google Ads Coupon Codes

FREE SEO TOOLS

  • Webpage Source Code Viewer
  • HTTP Header Checker
  • What is My IP Address?
  • Google Cache Checker
  • Domain Age Checker Tool
  • View All Free Web and SEO Tools

© 2024 · WebNots · All Rights Reserved.

Type and press Enter to search

What is a drive letter?

Lenovo Pro  Business Store

Log In / Sign Up

{{SalesNumber}}

{{SmallBusinessNumber}}

Chat Now >

Visit Sales Support Page >

Order Support:

Order Lookup >

Visit Order Support Page >

Technical Support >

  • About Lenovo
  • Lenovo Pro for Business Business Store Benefits Small Business Medium Business Partners Business Community
  • Shop Shop all Education Education Sale Laptops by Major Education Accessories Warranties & Services
  • Explore Education Discounts Lenovo EDU Community More in Lenovo Education
  • Shop Shop All Gaming Gaming Laptops Gaming Desktops Gaming Accessories Gaming Sale
  • Explore Lenovo Legion Lenovo LOQ Legion Go Legion Ultimate Support Legion Gaming Community

Sign in / Create Account Keep track of your wishlist, orders, and My Lenovo rewards, all in one place

Access your orders, subscriptions, saved carts, rewards balance, and profile

Create a wishlist of your favorite products

Create an account to earn or view your rewards

View & track your orders

Product Registration

Register your product and/or update your warranty dates

  • Laptops by Type 2-in-1 Laptops Traditional Laptops Build Your Own Laptop Mobile Workstations Chromebooks Shop All Laptops
  • Laptops by Use Work Gaming Education Laptops by Brand Yoga & Lenovo Slim ThinkPad ThinkBook Legion Gaming LOQ Gaming IdeaPad
  • Best Selling Laptops ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 11 ThinkPad E16 Intel Legion Pro 5i Gaming (16'' Intel) Yoga 6 (13” AMD) 2 in 1 Laptop IdeaPad Slim 3i Chromebook (14″ Intel) Quick Links New Arrivals Pick Up at Best Buy Laptop Deals
  • Desktops by Type Traditional Towers Small Form Factor All-in-One Tiny Desktops Thin Client Desktop Workstations Build Your Own Desktops
  • Desktops by Use Work Gaming Everyday Desktops by Brand Legion Gaming LOQ Gaming ThinkCentre Yoga IdeaCentre ThinkStation
  • Best Selling Desktops ThinkCentre M80q Tiny (Intel) ThinkCentre M90a (24” Intel) ThinkCentre M70q Tiny (Intel) IdeaCentre AIO 3i (27" Intel) IdeaCentre 3i (Intel) Legion Tower 5i Gaming (Intel) Legion Tower 5 Gaming (AMD) Quick Links New Arrivals Desktop Deals
  • Workstations by Type Desktop Workstations Mobile Workstations Build your Own Shop All Workstations
  • Workstations by Brand ThinkPad ThinkStation
  • Best Selling Workstations ThinkPad P1 Gen 6 ThinkPad P16s Gen 2 ThinkPad P16 Gen 2 ThinkPad P16v ThinkPad P14s Gen 4 ThinkStation P3 Tiny ThinkPad P3 Tower Quick links Workstation Deals Compare Mobile Workstations
  • Accessories by Category Docking Stations Keyboards & Mice Cases & Bags Audio Chargers & Batteries Cables & Adapters Webcams Lenovo Go Accessories Printers & Scanners Wireless & Networking Privacy & Protection
  • Memory & Storage Stylus Pens & Supplies Stands & Mounts Furniture Graphics Cards Hubs Tablet Accessories VR Headsets Smart Home Devices Wearables
  • Software & Subscriptions PDF Editors Graphics & Creativity Security Utilities Monthly Subscriptions Microsoft 365 Google Workspace Dropbox Lenovo Vantage Amazon Music Shop All Software
  • Quick Links Find Compatible Accessories Web Exclusives Yes, Lenovo sells that Brand Bundle & Save Accessory Deals New Arrivals
  • Monitors by Size 29″ or more 27″ - 28″ 23″ - 24.5″ Less than 23″ Portable Monitors
  • Monitors by Use Gaming Monitors ​Business Monitors​ Business for Professionals​ Docking Monitors​ Monitors for Home​
  • Monitors by Resolution & Shape​ 4K - Best QHD - Better FHD - Good Curved & Ultrawide
  • Quick Links Monitor Deals Shop All Monitors Monitor Buying Guide Monitor Accessories​
  • Explore Tablets Android Tablets Tablets for Business Tablet Accessories Tablet Deals Shop All Tablets
  • Explore Smartphones ThinkPhone by Motorola Moto G Series Moto Edge Series Moto Care Phone Accessories Smartphone Deals
  • Best Selling Tablets Lenovo Tab M8 Lenovo Tab M9 Lenovo Tab M10 Plus Lenovo Yoga Tab 11 Lenovo Tab P11 Pro Lenovo Tab P12
  • Explore Servers Rack Servers Tower Servers Edge Servers Mission Critical Servers Multi-Node Servers High-Density Servers Options & Accessories
  • Explore By Processor AMD Servers Intel Servers
  • Explore Storage Unified Storage Storage-Area Network Direct-Attached Storage Tape Storage Options & Accessories
  • Hyperconverged Infrastructure ThinkAgile HX Series (with Nutanix) ThinkAgile MX and SXM Series (with Microsoft) ThinkAgile VX Series (with VMware)
  • Explore Software Infrastructure Software Management Software Lenovo Open Cloud Automation Cloud Marketplace
  • Explore Furniture Desks Office Chairs & Seating Bookcases Tables Boards Shop All Furniture
  • Office Supplies Office Accessories Notetaking Writing Cleaning Products Storage Binders Shredders Shop All Office Supplies
  • Smart Office Conference Cameras Presentation Remote Controllers Printers & Scanners ThinkSmart Bar Speakers ThinkReality Smart Glasses Shop All ThinkSmart Office Devices
  • Smart Devices Smart Lighting Smart Glasses VR headsets Smartwatches
  • PC Deals Laptop Deals ThinkPad Deals Gaming Deals 2-in-1 Laptop Deals Desktop Deals Workstation Deals Build Your Own PC
  • Other Deals Clearance Outlet Accessories & Electronics Monitor Deals Tablets & Phones Deals Server & Storage Deals
  • Membership & Programs Lenovo Coupons Lenovo Trade-in Lenovo Pro for Business My Lenovo Rewards Lenovo Financing All Discount Programs
  • Digital Workplace Solutions Digital Workplace Offerings Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Smart Collaboration
  • Hybrid Cloud Multi Cloud Solutions Cloud Service Provider
  • TruScale Hybrid Cloud Deloitte-Hybrid Cloud Microsoft-Hybrid Cloud Nutanix-Hybrid Cloud SAP-Hybrid Cloud VMware-Hybrid Cloud
  • AI for All Edge AI Edge Computing Lenovo AI Innovators
  • Sustainability Lenovo Value Recovery Asset Recovery Services CO2 Offset Services
  • TruScale TruScale IaaS TruScale DaaS TruScale Data Management TruScale HPC TruScale Infinte Storage TruScale DaaS Calculator
  • Solutions by Industry Architecture, Engineering & Construction Education Government Healthcare
  • Manufacturing Media & Entertainment OEM Infrastructure Solutions OEM Solutions
  • Product Development Retail SMB Infrastructure Solutions Telco Infrastructure Solutions
  • Alliance Partners AMD Intel Lenovo Solutions Accelerated By Intel Microsoft
  • NVIDIA Red Hat SAP VMWare Lenovo AI Innovators
  • Other Solutions AR/VR Backup & Disaster Recovery Big Data & Analytics Business Applications Database
  • Data Management High-Performance Computing Kubernetes & Containers Windows 11
  • Resources Customer Success Stories Smarter Infrastructure Customer Stories Storage Customer Stories
  • Resource Library Lenovo Press Tech Today Resource Center
  • Lenovo StoryHub Infrastructure Solutions Events Lenovo Executive Briefing Center
  • Warranty Lookup
  • Genuine Lenovo Parts
  • Support Services Premier Support Plus Premier Support Premium Care Plus Premium Care Legion Ultimate Support Replacement Parts Store Lifecycle Warranty & Protection Lenovo Live Assistant
  • Deployment Services Planning & Optimization Asset Management Customization Post Deployment Easy Install
  • Managed Services Device as a Service (DaaS) Smart Performance Smart Lock Sustainability Services Asset Recovery CO2 Offset Services
  • Services by Industry Healthcare Education Small Business
  • Explore Services Solution Services Implementation Services Support Services TruScale Infrastructure Services
  • Customer Support Help Placing an Order Warranty Extensions Order Replacement Parts Shopping Help
  • Order Support Existing Order Help Check Order Status Lenovo Return Policy
  • Technical Support PC Support Data Center Support Smart Devices Support Motorola Mobile Support Forums All Technical Support
  • Sales Support For Home 1-855-253-6686 For Business 1-866-426-0911 Visit Sales Support
  • Order Support Track Your Order Warranty Lookup For Home 1-855-253-6686 For Business 1-866-426-0911
  • Technical Support
  • Track Your Order
  • Our Leaders
  • Smarter Technology For All
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Sustainability
  • Lenovo Foundation
  • Lenovo News
  • Investor Relations

Presidents Day Sale. Save up to {savingPercent} off doorbusters plus extra savings the more you buy! . Free Shipping sitewide.  Shop Now >

Shopping for a business? New Lenovo Pro members get $100 off first order of $1,000+, exclusive savings & 1:1 tech support.   Le arn More >

Need it today? Buy online, pick up select products at Best Buy.  Shop Pick Up >

My Lenovo Rewards Members earn 2x rewards sitewide (that's 6% of your purchase back)!  Join for Free >

Bad credit or no credit? No problem! Katapult offers a simple lease to own payment option to help get what you need.  See if you Prequalify >

A drive letter is a single alphabetic character that is assigned to a physical or logical drive in your computer's file system. It helps you identify and access different storage devices, such as hard drives, solid state drives (SSDs), universal serial bus (USB) drives, and compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROMs).

Can I change the drive letter of my hard drive?

Yes, you can. Windows allows you to change the drive letter of your hard drive. However, it's not recommended to change the drive letter of your system or boot drive as it may affect the operation of certain installed applications.

Does every drive have a unique drive letter?

Typically, yes. Each physical or logical drive is assigned a unique letter in the system. However, network drives may share the same letter on different machines, and removable media like universal serial bus (USB) drives can also receive different letters when inserted into different computers.

What is the significance of assigning letters to drives?

Assigning letters to drives simplifies the process of locating and managing files. Instead of remembering complex device paths, you just need to remember a simple letter. This method is especially user-friendly for non-technical users.

Could I potentially run out of drive letters?

Technically, yes. Since drive letters range from A to Z, you could run out if you have more than 26 drives. However, in most personal computing scenarios, this is unlikely to be an issue.

Would changing the drive letter cause any issues with my programs?

It could. If you change the drive letter of a drive where programs are installed, these programs may stop working properly. This is because the programs' references to file locations will no longer be accurate after the drive letter change.

How do I see what drive letters are currently assigned on my windows computer?

You can view the current drive letters in Windows by opening the Disk Management tool. Here, you'll see a graphical representation of your disk layout, along with the assigned drive letters.

What happens when I remove a universal serial bus (USB) and then plug it back in, will it get the same drive letter?

Not necessarily. When you plug in a USB drive, your system assigns it the first available letter. If that letter is still available when you plug it back in, it will likely be assigned the same letter. However, if another device has been assigned that letter in the meantime, your USB drive will receive a different one.

Does the drive letter system apply to all operating systems?

No, the drive letter system is specific to disk operating system (DOS) and Windows-based systems. Other operating systems, like Linux® and more, use a different method called 'mount points' to handle drives and partitions.

What's the process to change a drive letter on Windows?

You can change a drive letter in Windows using the Disk Management tool. Right-click the drive whose letter you want to change, select 'Change Drive Letter and Paths', and then follow the prompts. Remember, changing the letter of a drive that contains installed programs could cause those programs to stop working.

Can I assign the same drive letter to different devices?

No, you can't. Each device connected to your system must have a unique drive letter. If you try to assign a letter that's already in use, you'll receive an error message.

Why does my compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM) drive have a higher letter?

By default, Windows assigns the letters at the end of the alphabet to optical drives like CD-ROMs. This is done to prevent conflicts with other devices, especially if new hard drives or partitions are added later.

Could I have a drive without a letter?

Yes, it’s possible to have a drive without a letter in Windows. Some system partitions, like the recovery partition, don't have a drive letter by default. You can also manually remove a drive letter using the Disk Management tool, but this will make the drive inaccessible from File Explorer.

Does the drive letter affect the performance of my drive?

No, the drive letter has no impact on the performance of your drive. It's simply an identifier used by your system to recognize and manage the drive.

What happens when I format a drive, does it change the drive letter?

No, formatting a drive doesn't change its drive letter. The format operation erases all data on the drive and prepares it for new data, but the drive letter remains the same.

Can I change the drive letter of my system drive (C:)?

No, you cannot change the drive letter of your system drive (usually C:) while your system is running. Doing so could cause system instability or even prevent Windows from booting up.

What happens if I remove a drive letter?

If you remove a drive letter, the drive will still exist, but it will not be accessible through

How do I add a drive letter if I accidentally removed it?

You can add a drive letter using the Disk Management tool. Right-click the drive without a letter, select 'Change Drive Letter and Paths', then 'Add', and follow the prompts to assign a new drive letter.

What's the difference between a drive letter and a mount point?

A drive letter represents a drive as a single entity, like 'C:' or 'D:'. A mount point, on the other hand, makes a drive or partition accessible from an existing folder of another drive. This can be useful when you're out of drive letters or want to organize multiple drives under a single folder structure.

What happens if I disconnect a drive, does its letter get assigned to another drive?

No, when you disconnect a drive, its letter isn't automatically assigned to another drive. When you reconnect the drive, it should retain the same drive letter. If the letter was assigned to another drive while it was disconnected, you might need to manually assign a new letter to it.

Why do drive letters start from 'C:' and not 'A:'?

In early versions of disk operating system (DOS) and Windows, the letters 'A:' and 'B:' were reserved for floppy disk drives. Even though floppy drives are largely obsolete now, this convention has been maintained for compatibility reasons.

How many drives can I have on my windows system?

You can have up to 26 drive letters (from 'A:' to 'Z:'), but you can have more drives by using mount points. Keep in mind that certain letters are typically reserved for specific purposes, like 'C:' for the system drive or 'A:' and 'B:' for floppy drives.

This glossary is provided for reference purposes only. It serves as a helpful resource to understand commonly used terms and concepts. However, if you require specific support or assistance regarding our products, we encourage you to visit our dedicated support site . Our support team is ready to help address any questions or concerns you may have.

what happens if you don't assign a drive letter

Free-to-join for businesses of any size or maturity. Get exclusive business pricing on Lenovo's entire catalog, get 1-on-1 help from tech advisors, and access Lenovo's business community.

what happens if you don't assign a drive letter

Signup for Lenovo email notifications to receive valuable updates on products, sales, events, and more...

what happens if you don't assign a drive letter

Earn rewards to use on future purchases at Lenovo & Lenovo Pro. Join today and get FREE Expedited Delivery on all orders!

Country

  • Our Company
  • Investors Relations
  • Product Recycling
  • Product Security
  • Product Recalls
  • Executive Briefing Center
  • Lenovo Cares
  • Formula 1 Partnership
  • Products & Services
  • Laptops & Ultrabooks
  • Desktop Computers
  • Workstations
  • Servers, Storage, & Networking
  • Accessories & Software
  • Services & Warranty
  • Product FAQs
  • Lenovo Coupons
  • Cloud Security Software
  • Windows 11 Upgrade
  • Shop By Industry
  • Small Business Solutions
  • Large Enterprise Solutions
  • Government Solutions
  • Healthcare Solutions
  • Higher Education Solutions
  • Education Discounts
  • Discount Programs
  • Legion Gaming Community
  • Lenovo EDU Community
  • Lenovo Pro Community
  • Lenovo Pro for Business
  • My Lenovo Rewards
  • Lenovo Financing
  • Lenovo Trade-in
  • Customer Discounts
  • Affiliate Program
  • Affinity Program
  • Employee Purchase Program
  • Lenovo Partner Hub
  • Laptop Buying Guide
  • Where to Buy
  • Customer Support
  • Policy FAQs
  • Return Policy
  • Shipping Information
  • Order Lookup
  • Register a Product
  • Replacement Parts
  • Provide Feedback

The Best Windows Disk Partition Manager and PC Optimizer

what happens if you don't assign a drive letter

  • Free Partition Software >

Get Your Missing Drive Letter Back in Windows 11/10/8/7

If the drive letter disappear, you will be unable to access the partition or volume. Here you can learn how to get your missing drive letter back in Windows 11/10/8/7.

Cherry

By Cherry / Updated on May 12, 2023

twitter

1. Drive letter missing suddenly in Windows Explorer

2. drive letter disappear in disk management.

  • 3. Drive letter not showing up in the available drive letter list

4. Drive letter missing because the partition is hidden

5. drive letter missing after reboot pc, 6. settle drive letter missing in map network drive, drive letter disappers.

"For various reasons, I have reinstalled Windows 7 from scratch. When I got to the point where I am telling the installer what I want to do with my hard drives (I have two huge ones) I formatted both hard drives. Now, after I have installed the Operating System, it only recognizes the one hard drive that I put the Operating System on, (the C drive). I guess it does not read from a reformatted drive that it has not written to. Besides, its drive letter disappered. Does that causes the drive not showing up and not accessible?If so, how do I fix it so that I can use the second drive?"

Overview of drive letter missing

When you divided your hard disk into several partitions, you’ll give it a letter from A to Z. That is drive letter. It can be used to physical disk partition, floppy disk drive, removable device, CD-ROM, or network drive. Each storage drive should be assigned a drive letter . Once the drive letter missing, you cannot access the drive to get any information.

There are many situations of drive letter missing, and here we have list the top 5 situations:

1. Drive letter missing from Windows Explorer or My Computer

3. Drive letter missing from the list of available drive letters

4. Drive letter disappear after reboot

5. Drive letter missing in map network drive

Actually, in many cases, drive letter missing is the main reason of hard drive is not showing up. Thus, it is necessary to find drive letter back.

How to get missing drive letter back in Windows 11/10/8/7?

It is urgent to get the drive letter back when you find it disappeared. For the case we mentioned above, you can try the following methods.

If you find the drive letter suddenly missing in Windows Explorer or My Computer, you need to check whether it is hidden. If the drive letter is hidden, here you can do as following steps to get it back (take Windows 10 as an example):

Step 1. To configure your Folder Options in Windows 10, you’ll need to begin by opening up a window in File Explorer.

Step 2. Then, click on the top left hand File menu, and select Change folder and search options to get the Folder Options.

Step 3. Then, select the " View " tab, scroll down the slide handle to find the Show drive letters option in Advanced settings and check it, click OK .

Folder Options

After that, we can see the missing drive letters in Windows Explorer again.

In Disk Management, every drive is assigned a drive letter. If the drive letter missing, you can reassign it a drive letter in Disk Management.

Locate Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management You will find every hard disk in the list below with names like Disk 0, Disk 1, Disk 2 etc. Find the missing Disk and add a Drive Letter, after this you will see your missing hard drive in My Computer.

Assign drive letter

3. Drive letter not showing up in the available drive letter list

If you want to reassign it with the original drive letter in Disk Management, but find it is missing from the list of available drive letters. This usually happen on the drive letter D. That's because the D drive letter is always occupied by the CD or DVD, which is used for installing the updates. In this case, you can rename the DVD drive with other drive letter first, and then reassign D drive letter to the required partition. 

In addition to, the missing drive letter may aslo be reserved for a removable device that was removed or is hidden. For this situation, you can get the missing drive letter from Registry. Do as followings:

1>. Launch Regedit , navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices . Check whether there is a device is shown as being mounted at the specific drive letter.

2>. Then, right-click the drive letter that you want and choose  Rename from the list menu, and change the letter to any other used letter to free up it.

Get Drive Letter Back Registry

Reboot the computer to assign the released letter to the drive you want.

If a partition is hidden and you cannot find it and access it, it is a good choice to turn to a  free partition manager for help. The AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard should be a great choice. If your computer is base on Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2019, 2022, the AOMEI Partition Assistant Server Edition can help you settle all partitions problems.

Install AOMEI Partition Assistant to your computer based on Windows 11/10/8/7. it will show you all partitions on your computer no matter it is hidden or not. That means here you can clearly see whether your partition is hidden.

To unhide the partition, here you can do as follows:

Step 1 . Right-click the hidden partition, select Advanced -> Unhide Partition .

Advanced Unhide Partition

Step 2 . Click OK to unhide the selected partition. If the partition has no drive letter after unhiding, please restart your computer.

Unhinding Selected Partition

Step 3 . Click Apply -> Proceed to execute the task.

Apply Unhide Partition

After that, the missing drive letter will be back and you can access to the drive successfully.

Part of users may meet the problem that after reboot their PC, the drive letter missing. If the drive letter missing after every reboot, you can consider to wipe the hard drive and recreate partitions. And you can also use AOMEI Partition Assistant to wipe hard drive.

Step 1 . Right-click the hard drive that needs to be wiped, select Wipe Hard Drive . 

Wipe Hard Drive 16gb

Step 2 . Here you can choose a wiping method. There are four methods you can choose, and here we choose Fill sectors with Zero. because besides this way, you need to upgrade to AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional for the other three ways.

Fit Sectors With Zero 16gb

Step 3 . Finally, click Apply -> Proceed to execute the progress.

Apply 16gb

After the whole progress, you can recreate partitions on the hard drive with Disk Management or AOMEI Partition Assistant.

Sometimes, you may find the local drive letters may disappear in Windows Explorer suddenly. That may because of the drive letter missing in map network drive. You may not check the option “Reconnect at logon”. For this situation, you just need to remap the network drive and check Reconnect at logon .

Reconnect at Logon

There are many reasons would cause drive letter missing. Hope that this article can help you to solve your problem. If you have any other good methods for settle this kind of problem, welcome to share it in the comments area.

Cherry

Related Articles

How to permanently assign drive letter with ease.

A permanent drive letter prevents us from being confused with multiple USB drives. Then, how to permanently assign drive letter with ease? This post offers three effective ways to make it.

D Drive Missing in Windows 10 or 11? Now Recover It Easily!

D drive missing and cannot see the D drive in Windows 10/11? Here you can learn why D drive disappeared in Windows 10 and how to restore D drive or other lost partition in Windows computer.

2 Ways to Recover Lost Partition in Windows 10, 8, 7, or 11

Do you want to know how to recover lost partition in Windows 10 effectively and safely? You are going to learn to do it in two ways from here, both these ways are also suitable for other Windows systems.

Free Download to Try AOMEI Partition Assistant Now

what happens if you don't assign a drive letter

Top Contributors in Windows 10: Ramesh Srinivasan  -  neilpzz  -  Horace Wiggins  -  franco d'esaro  -  _AW_   ✅

February 14, 2024

Top Contributors in Windows 10:

Ramesh Srinivasan  -  neilpzz  -  Horace Wiggins  -  franco d'esaro  -  _AW_   ✅

  • Search the community and support articles
  • Search Community member

Ask a new question

Problems assigning drive letter in Windows 10

I am running Windows 10. Within the past week or so I've had two problems assigning drive letters - I put them both in the post as they may be related.

First, when I assign a drive letter it takes anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to complete. It doesn't seem to matter what external drive is involved or what letter I want to assign. 

Second, the most recent time I tried to assign a drive letter (to an external drive previously used) I received a message that said "The operation failed to complete because the Disk Management console view is not up-to-date. Refresh the view by using the refresh task. If the problem persists, close the Disk Management console, then restart Disk Management or restart the computer."

The drive in Disk Management shows a Healthy NTFS Primary Partition and the drive appears in File Explorer. First I tried restarting Disk Management. No change. Second I tried rebooting the computer. No change. Finally I tried doing Action | Refresh. The line for Drive 4 completely disappeared from Disk Management. The full lines for disks 0-3 and the blank lines for disks 5-6 still appear. Every few minutes the line for disk 4 will show up again as a healthy partition, then it will disappear again a few minutes later.

I wonder if the two problems may be related or where to go from here. When the Disk 4 line shows up in Disk Management, everything looks just fine with it.

Report abuse

Replies (3) .

Inactive profile

We are aware of this issue we will get back to you as soon as possible. You may please provide your suggestions in the feedback app. It will be directly referred by our developer’s team for further improvement.  

Follow the steps:

  • Go to Start , enter the phrase Windows Feedback and then select Windows Feedback.
  • See if someone else has given similar feedback by entering the topic, such as Microsoft Music.
  • If you find similar feedback, select it, add any details and then select Me too.
  • To narrow your search to a specific category, pick the category that most closely matches your feedback (so it gets to the right people quickly). For example, for feedback about the Music app, select Apps > Music.
  • If you don’t find any similar feedback, select New Feedback , choose a topic from Select a category and then select a subcategory.
  • Enter your feedback (the more details the better!), add a screenshot if you can, and you're done.

Hope the information helps, do reply if you need further assistance.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

Thanks for your feedback.

My PC will not recognize any flash/thumb drive I install. What gives. It presents an error message and I do all it says, but nothing solves the problem. I need this function. I need these flash drives to transfer files.

Here is the error code: "The operation failed to complete because the Disk Management console view is not up-to-date. Refresh the view by using the refresh task. If the problem persists, close the Disk Management console, then restart Disk Management or restart the computer."

If this has been corrected and I don't know about it, please inform me. Thank you.

Question Info

  • Devices & drivers
  • Norsk Bokmål
  • Ελληνικά
  • Русский
  • עברית
  • العربية
  • ไทย
  • 한국어
  • 中文(简体)
  • 中文(繁體)
  • 日本語

MiniTool

  • Disk & Data Manager
  • Partition Wizard
  • Power Data Recovery
  • ShadowMaker
  • Media Toolkit
  • uTube Downloader
  • Video Converter
  • Download Partition Wizard Free Edition: Download Pro Edition: Try Demo Server Edition: Try Demo
  • Disk Recovery

[Resolved] Change Drive Letter and Paths Greyed Out Windows 10

When connecting an external drive to Windows PC, many users encounter the “ change drive letter and paths greyed out” issue. Why they can’t change drive letter? How to fix it? Now, let’s explore the answers together with MiniTool Partition Wizard .

After investigating extensive user reports, we found the “change drive letter and paths greyed out” issue often occurs when they connect an external drive like USB to Windows. Here is a true example from the Microsoft forum:

I have a drive that has a lot of information on it that I need. A user left our company and all of his files are on this drive. When I plug the drive in it loads the drivers and shows up just fine in Disk Management (shown below), but not in Computer. I want to read the drive on the computer. So I think, ok, I’ll just add a drive letter but that option is greyed out. Is there a way to get this drive accessible without formatting? https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums

change drive letter and paths greyed out

If you are also facing the issue, keep reading the following part.

What Causes the “Change Drive Letter and Paths Greyed Out” Issue

Why you can’t change drive letter and paths Windows 10? According to a survey, the main reason behind the issue is that you are using a Mac formatted drive on Windows. It’s known that the mac hard drive is formatted to an HFS+ file system that can’t be accessed on a Windows PC. Usually, this situation often appears on an external storage device.

On an internal hard drive, the following situations may cause you can’t change drive letter and paths Windows 10.

  • You are changing a system partition or a boot partition’s drive letter. Usually, the system partition was assigned with C by default.
  • The drive letter you are trying to change might be in use. In this case, you can close all running programs and try again.
  • The drive letter has already been used by some external storage device.

Top recommendation: Ext4 vs NTFS vs HFS+: Differences and Which One Should You Use

Before You Do: Recover Data from the Hard Drive

If you are anxious to access the data on the external drive, we highly recommend you use MiniTool Partition Wizard. It is a multifunctional partition manager that focuses on data recovery , file system conversion, disk benchmark, and OS migration . With this powerful tool, you can recover data from a mac formatted drive.

Here’s how to use MiniTool Partition Wizard to recover data from an HFS+ drive.

MiniTool Partition Wizard Demo Click to Download 100% Clean & Safe

Step 1. Connect your external drive to the Windows computer.

Step 2.  Launch the program to enter its main interface, click on Data Recovery on the top toolbar, and select the drive you just connected and click on Scan .

click on Scan to recover data in MiniTool Partition Wizard

Step 3.  Then you need to wait for a while. Once the scan completes, tick the checkboxes next to the needed files and click on the  Save  button. 

save the restored data

Step 4.  Select a directory to save the needed files and click on  OK . Here we recommend you save the recovered files to another drive. Or, the unrecovered data could be overwritten.

select a directory folder to save the data

Now, you can access the data from the mac formatted drive. Here comes another problem: how to do it if you can’t change the drive letter? Let’s go on.

How to Do If You Can’t Change Drive Letter

If you are still troubled by the “change drive letter and paths greyed out Windows 10” issue, you can try the following methods.

Method 1. Connect the Drive to a Supported Operating System

As mentioned above, the main reason for the change drive letter and paths greyed out error is due to an unsupported operating system. So, the easiest and direct way is to use the drive on a Mac or other supported computer. If not, you won’t be able to access its data on Windows unless you use a professional data recovery tool or format it to a supported file system.

Method 2. Format Mac Hard Drive on PC

If you don’t have a Mac computer, then you may consider formatting the drive to NTFS/FAT32 and assign a letter. How to format a Mac hard drive on Windows? Microsoft provides some built-in tools that can be used to format a hard drive, including Diskpart, Disk Management, and File Explorer.

Here we take Diskpart for example:

Using Diskpart:

Step 1. If you are using an external drive, make sure you connected it to the computer.

Step 2.  Press  Win + R  keys to open the  Run  dialog box, and then type  diskpart  in the box and hit  Enter .

open diskpart command prompt via the Run box

Step 2.  In the Diskpart window, type the following commands one by one and hit  Enter  after each typing. Once you finished the command below, your drive should be formatted to NTFS or FAT32

  • select disk * (replace * with the number of your connected drive)
  • list partition
  • select partition 1 (the 1 represents the partition you want to format)
  • format fs=ntfs quick or format fs=fat32 quick

formating an external drive with Diskpart

Step 3. Proceed with the following commands if you want to assign a drive letter for the drive.

  • Select disk 1 (the 1 represents the disk you want to create a partition in)
  • create partition primary size=x  (x represents the extended partition size in MB)
  • assign letter=E (replace E with the letter you want to assign for the drive)

assign a drive letter using Diskpart

Diskpart helps you format hard drive and create partitions. Sometimes, however, you may encounter the “ no usable free extent could be found ” and “ Virtual Disk Service Error ” and while using Diskpart. In addition, this tool can’t help you format a drive larger than 64GB to FAT32. To format a drive quickly and safely, we recommend you use MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Using MiniTool Partition Wizard:

Compared with the Windows built-in tools, MiniTool Partition Wizard makes a great breakthrough on partition management. It can help you format a large drive, change drive letter , change cluster size, etc.

MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Click to Download 100% Clean & Safe

Sep 1.  Connect your storage drive to the computer and launch MiniTool Partition Wizard to enter its main interface.

Step 2.  Select the connected drive from the disk map and click on  Format Partition  from the left pane.

Step 3.  In the pop-up window, select  NTFS/FAT32/exFAT  or other file system based on your demands and click on  OK .

Step 4.  Click on  Apply  to execute the formatting operation.

format a drive using MiniTool Partition Wizard

Step 5. If you want to assign a letter to a partition, you can select the drive from the disk map and click on Change Drive Letter.

Step 6. Select a drive letter from the drop-down menu, and click on OK and Apply to execute it.

change drive letter using MiniTool Partition Wizard

You may also be interested in how long does it take to format a hard drive .

Method 3. Convert MBR to GPT

On the Microsoft forum, some users reported that they can change drive letters successfully after converting an MBR disk to GPT. Here you may have a try. How to convert MBR to GPT without data loss ? MiniTool Partition Wizard can make it!

Step 1. In the main interface, select the connected drive from disk map and click on Convert MBR Disk to GPT Disk from the left pane.

Step 2. Click on Apply to execute the pending operation. Once done, you can check if you can change the drive letter.

convert MBR to GPT disk using MiniTool Partition Wizard

I encountered the “change drive letter and paths greyed out Windows 10” error. Some people said this is because the drive is Mac formatted. How to access my data? How to format Mac hard drive on PC? I found the answers in this post. Click to Tweet

What’s Your Opinion

Here comes the end of this post. If you are eager to access the data on a Mac formatted drive, you can use MiniTool Partition Wizard first to recover it. In addition, this post also tells you how to format a Mac hard drive on Windows.

If you have better ideas on the “change drive letter and paths greyed out Windows 10” subject, you can write them in the comment area. For any questions or suggestions on the MiniTool program, you send us an email to [email protected]

Change Drive Letter and Paths Greyed Out FAQ

  • Press Win + R keys to open the Run dialog box, and then type  msc in the text box and click on  OK  to open Disk Management .
  • Right-click the drive and select the Change Drive Letter and Paths
  • Click on Change and select a drive letter from the drop-down menu, and click on OK .
  • Click on Yes to confirm the operation.

After investigating extensive user reports, we summarize 7 applicable methods to fix the Parameter Is Incorrect error:

  • Compress these large files
  • Convert FAT32 to NTFS
  • Format your storage device to NTFS
  • Replace your hard drive with a larger one
  • Check file system errors
  • Connect your external drive to another different computer
  • Update your USB and Disk Drive drivers

About The Author

Ariel

Position: Columnist

User Comments :

IMAGES

  1. Fix: Windows 11 is Not Assigning Drive Letter Automatically

    what happens if you don't assign a drive letter

  2. Cannot Assign Drive Letter

    what happens if you don't assign a drive letter

  3. How do I fix unable to assign a drive letter?

    what happens if you don't assign a drive letter

  4. Rufus: unable to assign a drive letter

    what happens if you don't assign a drive letter

  5. Windows 11 Unable to Assign Drive Letter: How to Fix?

    what happens if you don't assign a drive letter

  6. How to fix Windows could not assign a drive letter to a partition on

    what happens if you don't assign a drive letter

VIDEO

  1. How to Change Drive Letter in Windows 11

  2. How to Change Drive Letter in Windows 11/10

  3. what do they mean by “drive”

  4. Don’t text and drive

  5. When you drive, don't text!

  6. Don’t Use the Letter E in This Conversation and Win $20 (Day 5)

COMMENTS

  1. Do not assign a drive letter or drive path

    1 Answer Sorted by: 3 It means that it will not give it a drive letter. It will format the drive but it will not appear with a drive letter in Explorer. If you want to copy files to the drive using Explorer then you will need to assign a letter to it. That you don't intend to use other programs to access it is irrelevant.

  2. Change a drive letter

    03/09/2023 4 contributors Feedback Applies To: Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019, and Windows Server 2016 If you want to change a drive letter assigned to a drive, or you have a drive that doesn't yet have a drive letter, use Disk Management to change it.

  3. What If Windows 10/11 Not Assigning Drive Letter Automatically

    The "Windows 10/Windows 11 not assigning drive letter" issue can happen due to various reasons, such as the incompatible file system, outdated Windows, virus infection, and so on. To solve this issue, some effective methods are listed in this post. Simply follow them to sort out your problem if you face the same issue. Note:

  4. Can't assign a letter for drive in Windows Disk Manager

    Can't assign a letter for drive in Windows Disk Manager - Microsoft Community Ask a new question HA harrify Created on February 18, 2021 Can't assign a letter for drive in Windows Disk Manager I have a drive which have three partitions (one unallocated), I want to change the letter of a partition.

  5. windows 10 does not assign a drive letter to my external USB drive

    Windows Key+X > Click Disk Management > If you see your Drive is listed there but there is no Drive Letter > Right Click it > Click Change Drive Letter and Paths > Add > Click Assign the following drive Letter > Click in the Drive Letter List Box > Choose an appropriate Drive Letter > OK > OK. Do let me know if you have any more question or ...

  6. Fix: Windows 11 is Not Assigning Drive Letter Automatically

    Key notes If you have a hard drive, you can access your files and folders, and it comes with a drive letter assigned to it. Automatic drive letter assignment is the best option because it will assign the drive letter based on the order in which you plug in your devices. Sometimes, this may fail due to a corrupt drive or other underlying issues.

  7. How to Change a Drive Letter on Windows 10 or Windows 11

    Partitions without drive letters will not appear in File Explorer and elsewhere.) How to Change a Drive Letter Changing a drive letter is pretty simple. Click the Start button, type "Disk Management" in the search bar, and then hit Enter. The program name displayed in the search will not be Disk Management.

  8. Change and Assign Drive Letter in Windows 10

    1 Open an elevated PowerShell. 2 Type Get-Partition into the elevated PowerShell, and press Enter. (see screenshot below) 3 Make note of the drive letter (ex: "G") of the drive you want to change. 4 Type the command below into the elevated PowerShell, and press Enter.

  9. Is a Drive Letter Not Available on Windows? Here's Why, and How ...

    Open the Partition Assistant app and find the drive you want to reassign in the main window. Right-click on the drive and select Advanced > Change Drive Letter from the menu. In the new panel, use the dropdown menu to select a new and unused drive letter. Click Ok and confirm the operation on the next screen.

  10. How to assign permanent letters to drives on Windows 10

    Search for Create and format hard disk partitions and click the top result to open the Disk Management experience. Right-click the drive and select the Change Drive Letter and Paths option. Click ...

  11. How to Change a Drive Letter

    Right-click and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths > Change. Select the drive letter you want to assign from Assign the following drive letter. Then select OK and choose Yes. The letters assigned to your hard drives, optical drives, and USB drives in Windows are not fixed. Use the Disk Management tool in Windows to change drive letters.

  12. You can change drive letters, but know the risk of doing so

    Answer Line You can change drive letters, but know the risk of doing so You can easily change drive D: into drive F:. But if Windows expects a file to be on drive D:, that's a problem....

  13. How to Fix Windows 11 Disk Management Cannot Assign Drive Letter

    Step 2. Right-click the target drive, click "Format". Step 3. In the new window set the "Volume Label", "File system" and "Allocation unit size", then click "OK". │ Method 2. Use Diskpart to remove write protection. The target disk has been write-protected is another main reason for Windows 11 Disk Management cannot assign drive letter. When ...

  14. How to assign a drive letter in Windows 10

    When you connect a new drive to your PC, Windows automatically assigns the next available letter after C, which is normally used for your system drive. So an external hard drive or USB...

  15. Windows Tip: Assign Permanent Letters to Removable Drives

    If you use many different external storage devices throughout the day, having different letters assigned each time can become annoying and make things feel unorganized. Here's how to assign...

  16. Why Does Windows Still Use Letters for Drives?

    Windows typically assigns your system drive the letter C: and gives different letters to other storage devices. That's unusual---macOS and Linux don't use letters. Windows can access drives without letters, so why does it use them? Where Do Drive Letters Come From?

  17. How to Assign or Change Drive Letter in Windows 11?

    Go to "Action > All Tasks > Change Drive Letter and Paths…" menu. Change Drive Letter in Disk Management. On the pop-up that appears, click on "Change…" button. Select Change Button. Click on the dropdown against "Assign the following drive letter:" option. Select your favorite letter and click "OK" button.

  18. What is a Drive Letter? Here's All You Need to Know

    Technically, yes. Since drive letters range from A to Z, you could run out if you have more than 26 drives. However, in most personal computing scenarios, this is unlikely to be an issue. Would changing the drive letter cause any issues with my programs? It could.

  19. Get Your Missing Drive Letter Back in Windows 11/10/8/7

    Free Partition Software > Get Your Missing Drive Letter Back in Windows 11/10/8/7 Get Your Missing Drive Letter Back in Windows 11/10/8/7 If the drive letter disappear, you will be unable to access the partition or volume. Here you can learn how to get your missing drive letter back in Windows 11/10/8/7. By Cherry / Updated on May 12, 2023

  20. Problems assigning drive letter in Windows 10

    Refresh the view by using the refresh task. If the problem persists, close the Disk Management console, then restart Disk Management or restart the computer." The drive in Disk Management shows a Healthy NTFS Primary Partition and the drive appears in File Explorer. First I tried restarting Disk Management.

  21. [Resolved] Change Drive Letter and Paths Greyed Out Windows 10

    Press Win + R keys to open the Run dialog box, and then type msc in the text box and click on OK to open Disk Management. Right-click the drive and select the Change Drive Letter and Paths. Click on Change and select a drive letter from the drop-down menu, and click on OK. Click on Yes to confirm the operation.