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assign drive letter for usb device

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Three Easy Ways to Change USB Drive Letter in Windows 11, 10, 8 or 7

Top three ways about how to change USB drive letter are listed in this post. You can pick the one that you like.

Bryce

By Bryce / Updated on May 12, 2023

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The reasons for changing drive letter for USB device

You may want to change USB drive letter in Windows 11, 10, 8, or 7 under the following conditions:

☞ The USB device, like external hard drive is not recognized in Window Explorer out of drive letter conflict. To resolve the problem, you can reassign drive ☞ letter to the USB drive. ☞ T he USB drive letter keeps changing every time it was connected to your PC. You can assign a permanent drive letter to the USB drive . ☞ You just don’t like the drive letter that has been assigned automatically to the USB drive and want to change it .

How to: Change USB drive letter in Windows 11/10/8/7 easily

Next, there are three ways about how to change drive letter for USB flash drive, USB external hard drive, etc. will be displayed. Pick up one way as you like.

Method 1. Change USB drive letter via Disk Management

Method 2. change usb drive letter using cmd, method 3. change usb drive letter with a free 3rd party gui tool.

Disk Management is a Windows built-in tool, allowing you to manage disk and partitions conveniently. Follow the steps given below to change drive letter of USB drive in Disk Management.

Step 1. Press Windows + R in Windows 11/10/8/7, input “ d iskmgmt.msc ” and hit Enter key to open Disk Management.

Step 2. Right-click the USB partition that you want to change the drive letter and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths... .

assign drive letter for usb device

Step 3. In the pop-up window, click Change… . If your USB drive is not showing up in drive out of drive letter missing, you can click Add to assign a drive letter to it.

assign drive letter for usb device

Step 4. Choose a new drive letter from the list and click OK .

assign drive letter for usb device

Note: If the USB drive is formatted with a file system incompatible with Windows OS, like Ext4 or is write-protected, you can find that “ Change Drive Letter and Paths ” option greyed out.

assign drive letter for usb device

To resolve the problem, you can format your USB drive with a file system recognized by Windows 10 /11 or remove write protection at first. Or you can try Method 2 or Method 3 to change the drive letter for your USB drive.

You can also change drive letter for USB drive from Command Prompt through the following steps:

Step 1. Pres s Windows + R simultaneously, input cmd, and click OK .

Step 2 . Type diskpart and hit Enter .

Step 3. Run commands listed below in order.

▪ list volume ▪ select volume n ▪ assign letter= m ▪ exit ▪ exit

assign drive letter for usb device

If you find out Change Drive Letter and Paths greyed out and are unfamiliar with Command Prompt, you can try a 3 rd party partition manager for Windows PC, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. It can change drive letter for USB drive even when it is write-protected or not formatted with NTFS or FAT file system. Now, free download it and take a closer look at how it works.

Step 1. Install and run the partition manager. In the home interface, right-click the partition whose drive letter needs to be changed and go to Advanced > Change Drive Letter .

assign drive letter for usb device

Step 2. In the pop-up window, choose a new drive letter for your USB drive and click OK .

assign drive letter for usb device

Step 3. You’ll go back to the main interface automatically. Click Apply and Proceed to commit the operation.

assign drive letter for usb device

✍ Notes: ✌ You can get more functions, like quick partition, partition recovery, etc., if you upgrade to AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional . ✌ To more easily identify USB drive, like external hard drive, you can also choose to change name of USB drive.

Bryce

Related Articles

How to rename external hard drive [four ways included].

Four valid & simple ways about how to rename external hard drive will be demonstrated in this post. Read it and you can choose one way to change its volume label.

How to Create UEFI Boot USB of Windows 10?

To create UEFI boot USB of Windows 10 or Windows 11 for installation, you can use CMD. If you want to make bootable USB with UEFI support for repair, you can use AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional instead.

How to Restore USB Drive to Original State in Windows 10/8/7?

Try to restore USB drive to original state as you want to restore it back to full capacity or delete all files on it? Refer to this article to get detailed steps to perform this operation.

Free Download to Try AOMEI Partition Assistant Now

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.

assign drive letter for usb device

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.

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How to assign a drive letter in Windows 10

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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

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Assign Permanent Drive Letter to USB Devices in Windows

Windows assigns drive letters to external USB devices in the order they are available and connected. If you have two hard disk drives and a disc drive ( ODD ), drive letters C, D, and E respectively would be assigned to them. When you connect a new external device, it is automatically assigned the next free drive letter: ‘F’. Generally it isn’t a problem, but if you have a backup software automatically backing files to an external hard disk or program running from the drive, this can cause issues. One way to fix this problem is by assigning a permanent drive letter to a device. Once assigned, no matter in which order you plug-in your device, it will always mount on the letter you chose.

Assigning a permanent drive letter to USB Devices

Disk Management Windows 7

  • Plug-in your external USB device
  • Press Win+R to open the Run dialog, and type in  diskmgmt.msc
  • All devices currently connected via the USB is listed in the Disk Management Console. Locate your USB drive, right-click on it, and choose “Change Drive Letters and Paths…” from the pop-up menu.
  • In the new dialog that opens, click on Change button – this will open another dialog

Change Drive Letter

  • “Assign the following drive letter:” option is pre-preselected, in its corresponding dropdown choose one of the unused drive letter. Choose one that’s high enough that it won’t be ever used by Windows.
  • Click OK, and confirm the warning that prompts you about the fact that some programs or shortcuts might stop working if you change the disk’s drive letter.

That’s it. You’re all set.

Test if the changes work by removing the USB device. Plug it back in, and then open Computer in Explorer to see the newly assigned drive letter in use with the device.

This method will work with all USB drives, flash drives, memory stick, phones and cameras.

Related tips:

  • Encrypt a USB Flash Drive using TrueCrypt on Windows
  • Format Your USB Drive as NTFS
  • Automatically Back Up Your Flash Drives and Memory Cards
  • Windows Experience Index Editor
  • Set a Doodle as Your Permanent Google Icon

How-To Geek

How to use the diskpart utility to assign and remove drive letters.

The Disk Management tool in Windows gives you an easy-to-use graphical interface to dealing with partitions and drive letters, but what if you want to just quickly change a drive letter on the command prompt? The diskpart utility makes it easy.

The Disk Management tool in Windows gives you an easy-to-use graphical interface to dealing with partitions and drive letters , but what if you want to just quickly change a drive letter on the command prompt? The diskpart utility makes it easy.

You'll need to start by opening an administrator mode command prompt -- type cmd into the search box, and then right-click and choose Run as administrator, or use the CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER keyboard shortcut.

assign drive letter for usb device

Once there, run the diskpart command, and then type in the following to list out the volumes on your system.

list volume

You'll want to note the volume number next to the drive that you want to change the letter of. In our case, that number is 3.

assign drive letter for usb device

Now we'll use the select volume command to tell diskpart to make changes to that volume. If your drive number is different, you'll want to replace the 3 with the number in your configuration.

select volume 3

You should see a message that the volume is now selected.

assign drive letter for usb device

At this point you can easily assign a new drive letter. Just type in this command, substituting R for the drive letter you'd like to use:

assign letter=R

Make sure to hit enter once you're done, of course.

assign drive letter for usb device

Once you've made that change, your drive should show up again as a new device, and be available for browsing immediately.

If you want to unassign a drive letter in order to hide the drive, you can also use the remove letter command in the same way. We wouldn't necessarily advise doing this, of course.

assign drive letter for usb device

Don't bother trying to change your C: drive, because that's not going to work.

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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.

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Additional resources

  Windows OS Hub / Windows 10 / Windows Doesn’t Automatically Assign Drive Letters

Windows Doesn’t Automatically Assign Drive Letters

How to manually assign a permanent drive letter in windows, changing drive letter via cmd or powershell, windows doesn’t save an assigned drive letter for connected usb drives.

If the drive doesn’t appear in Windows Explorer, it will have to manually assign a drive letter through the Disk Management snap-in ( diskmgmt.msc ). To do this, open the Computer Management console (via the Win + X menu) and go to the Storage section -> Disk management . In the list of drives, locate the connected removable USB drive. As you can see, the disk is online, it has one healthy partition with the NTFS, but it is not assigned a drive letter. To assign a drive letter to it, right-click on the partition and select “ Change Drive Letter and Path “.

Computer Management Change Drive Letter and Path

In the window that appears, click the “ Add ” button, select “ Assign the following drive letter ”, select the letter you want to assign to the drive (for example, H: ) in the drop-down list, and click OK.

Assign the following drive letter to the usb flash drive

Make sure that Windows detects the partition (s) on the connected USB drive and the partition is formatted with the NTFS, FAT32, or exFAT file system. If the file system is detected as RAW, or the disk is not partitioned, most likely the USB flash drive is just a new one, or the partition table is damaged and you have to repair the file system first.

If the disk is new and no partitions have been created on it, it appears in the console as Not initialized with an Unallocated area. To initialize such a disk:

initialize new disk in windows

  • Select the partition table for your disk: MBR or GPT; You can convert MBR-disk to GPT without data loss .

create partition on disk

If the disk is offline, right-click on it and select Online .

make disk online on windows

You can assign or change a drive letter from the command prompt using the Diskpart tool or using PowerShell.

Open the elevated command prompt and run the command:

List the volumes on the disks:

In this example, the TestDisk volume is not assigned a drive letter (empty in the Ltr column)

Select this volume (Volume 4 in our example):

Assign a drive letter Q: to this volume:

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

End the diskpart session:

assigning drive letter using diskpart cmd

You can also change or assign a drive letter using the PowerShell cmdlets from the built-in Disk Management module .

List drives:

List partitions on the specified disk:

get-disk 1|Get-Partition

Assign the letter Q: to partition 2 on disk 1:

Get-Partition -DiskNumber 1 -PartitionNumber 2 | Set-Partition -NewDriveLetter Q

using powershell to assign drive letter to the partition on the USB drive

After that, the connected USB disk appears in the File Explorer with the assigned drive letter.

Sometimes after disconnecting a USB device or restarting the computer, a drive letter is not automatically assigned to it. I have to assign the letter again manually through Disk Management, and that becomes annoying.

It seems that some feature of automatic detection and mounting of new partitions on the external storage devices is not working in Windows. How to solve this problem?

First of all, make sure that the Virtual Disk service is running. You can check the status of this service in the services management console ( services.msc ).

start virtual disk service

Or check the service state using PowerShell :

get-service vds

check virtual disk service running via powershell

Check if the problem persists. If it does, make sure that the automatic mounting of new volumes is enabled.

Open the command prompt as administrator and run the following commands: diskpart Within diskpart , make sure that the automatic mounting of new volumes is enabled: DISKPART> automount

As you can see, the auto-mounting is disabled. Let’s enable it: DISKPART> automount enable

Exit diskpart DISKPART> exit

Enable automount with diskpart

You can also enable automatic mounting of new partitions using the command:

MOUNTVOL /E

Make sure the NoAutoMount DWORD parameter (with a value of 1) is not created under the reg key HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\mountmgr . If this registry parameter is created, Windows doesn’t assign drive letters to newly connected devices.

list of saved drive letters assigned to disk in windows registry

Restart your computer and verify if the drive letters are assigned to the external USB devices.

If not, check if the “hidden” and “do not assign a drive letter” attributes are set for the partition on the USB drive. Run the Diskpart command prompt and enter the following commands:

  • List the disks: list disk
  • Find the disk number assigned to your USB flash drive (in this example 1) and select it: select disk 1
  • List the partitions on the disk: list part
  • Select the desired partition: select partition 2
  • Check the partition attributes: attributes volume

volume attributes

  • End the diskpart session by typing: exit

After that, this partition on the USB flash drive should be automatically assigned a drive letter on any computer.

Please note that the old Windows versions only see the first partition on USB sticks with multiple partitions. The ability to create multiple partitions on removable USB drives appeared only starting from Windows 10 build 1703. Previously, in order to make second and subsequent partitions on the USB flash drive were accessible in Windows, you had to use a trick to make Windows detect removable USB flash drive as an HDD .

If your USB flash drive doesn’t appear in the Disk Management console, try using a different USB port or cable. Try to connect the USB flash drive directly to the computer (without the USB hub), check whether the power is on and whether it is detected on other computers.

IdFix: Preparing On-Prem Active Directory Sync with Azure

Install and configure a read-only domain controller (rodc) on windows server 2019/2022, related reading, deploying third party software updates with wsus, how to find windows version and build number..., fix: action center not opening on windows 10..., couldn’t mount iso file on windows, mounting an iso image file in windows, 26 comments.

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Thanks, this worked great! 

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Finnally something that worked. 4  of my 9 USB keys no longer mount on my computer but worked on my wife’s so I knew it was a Windows problem. Gave up a year ago trying to solve the problem because none of the solutions on the web worked – and there are tons of them. So after loading Win 10 thought I would see if my keys worked they still didn’t so I did a google and this solution pooped up.  

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This fix worked like charm. Thanks for posting friend.

' src=

Great help! Thank a lot!

' src=

Very helpful! Thank you very much!

' src=

You rock!!!!  Been fighting this on a SBS 2011 server.  Enabling automount did the trick. Thanks SO much!!

' src=

Well done – automount worked like a dream in Windows10 Anniversary edition (on my laptop). Many thanks.

' src=

Good Job. Thank you verry much.

' src=

Virtual Disk service is running aoutomount is anabled already disk drive is showing in device manger but drives still not shown in my computer

win 7 ultimate service pack 1 fully updated

' src=

I had exact problem and this solution helped me.

' src=

Thanks a lot! It solved my problem!

' src=

every thing checked and correct but nothing is working for me windows 10 64 bit pro and USB flash drive is 16 GB Sandisk 3.0

And USB Drive is showing in Disk Management with its full capacity.

' src=

After reinstalling Windows my Data disk for some reason became hidden.. I couldnt figure out why it wouldnt auto mount but this solved it. Literally the only page on the internet that had the solution thanks fellas 🙂

' src=

Thank you, mine was fixed in diskpart

' src=

Thank you very much! I resolved my issue by setting the attribute of my disk. Thanks!!!

' src=

Thanks for the post, the part about the hidden drive attribute helped. No idea how it got set to Yes but I cleared it and it mounts fine again.

' src=

Thank you very much!. I was also able to resolve this by changing attributes of the external SSD.

' src=

Thank you very much. It solved my issues with the windows media creation tool

' src=

Excelent way of dealing with this issue!, Thank you very much!

' src=

Thanks, It’s working! It solved my problem!

' src=

Widows is the stupidest OS I have ever used. (For some reason I have to use it sometimes.) I formatted a brand new SSD on Windows (NTFS). Then I used this SSD on my Linux Mint without any problem for weeks. My colleague copied some data from it to his MAC. There were no problems. And now I plugged in again to that Windows shit, and it sees RAW fs. Why anybody pays a dollar for this OS, I really do not understand.

' src=

Great article! But all the measures above were fine and not the problem with my USB, a S$47 SanDisk 64GB stick (bought in Singapore but no warranty as I don’t live in Singapore and can’t get there at the moment….) My problem was that it just wouldn’t assign a drive letter. I was about to throw it in the bin. It said Healthy in Disk Management, you just couldn’t browse it. I assigned a drive letter and then the stick immediately opened in File Explorer. I restarted the computer, plugged in the stick and it again automatically recognised!

' src=

This solution does not work when i connect my tablet (Samsung Galaxy, model SM-T580, Android 7). Windows 10 sees it, I can transfer files between tablet and pc but only manually. If I want to use XCOPY in a .bat file, to copy hundreds of pictures every week, I can’t because there isn’t any Drive letter assigned to tablet. Any thoughts???

' src=

Worked fine for Seagate External 1 gb drive accidently formatted.

' src=

Thanks for the awesom tips. It worked. My external Hard disk’s volume was “hidden”!!!!

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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.

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Change Drive Letter in Windows for an External USB Device

Sadly, Windows does not always figure it out for itself

Author avatar

This is a guide on how to change the drive letter in Windows for an external USB device like a hard drive or USB stick. Here’s a common problem that I have seen: You plug in a USB flash drive into your computer and it says ready to use, but for some reason nothing shows up in the list of drives. Take it out, plug it back in and still nothing shows up! What’s the problem? Well, it could be several things, but the most common issue is that the drive letter Windows is trying to assign to your device is already taken by another device or is mapped to a network drive.

Sadly, Windows does not always figure this out by itself (which is should) and your drive is basically lost in computer neverland. In order to fix it, we need to go to Computer Management and assign the drive letter manually. There are two ways to get to the Computer Management dialog in Windows, one through Control Panel and the second by right-clicking  Computer and choosing Manage.

computer manage

Click on Disk Management under the Storage section and the right side will show you all of the current drives and partitions on your drive. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry, just find the drive you are looking for in the graphs at the bottom. They are usually named Disk 0, Disk 1, CD-ROM, CD-ROM1, etc. If you’re looking for a USB flash drive, you’ll see the word “ Removable ” underneath Disk X. In my case, it’s the I: drive that is removable. However, if you have a large USB hard drive connected, then it may show up as an additional hard disk like mine shown below (H:).

computer management drives

By default, Windows gave my portable USB drive the letter H. If your drive has no letter or you want to change it, then right-click in the white space to the right of the drive letter and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths .

change drive letter paths

Click the Change button in the dialog box and then pick a new letter from the drop-down list. Just for your info, the Mount in the following NTFS folder option is used if you had right clicked on an external hard drive and instead of giving it a drive letter, you wanted to just have it show up as a folder on your current hard drive. That means you could create a folder in My Documents called pictures that actually points to another hard drive instead of one where all of your My Documents are currently stored.

change drive letters

Click Ok twice and your drive should now have the new letter assigned. Usually, if the USB stick was not showing up before, once you change the letter, it will automatically pop up and ask you what you want to do. That’s about it! You can also use Disk Management to format disks, determine the type of File System and see the amount of free space available.

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Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7

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How to Change Drive Letter on Windows 11(4 Ways)

How to change drive letter on Windows 11? Here are 4 ways for you with stepwise guide. Also, it’s recommended to create a backup for your computer.

Maggie

By Maggie Updated on December 28, 2023

Way 1. Change drive letter via Windows Settings

Way 2. change drive letter from disk management, way 3. change drive letter from command prompt, way 4. change drive letter from powershell, what is a drive letter.

On Windows 11, every storage device gets a letter like C:, D:, or E: to help you find it in File Explorer. But guess what? You can change these letters if you want. Maybe you want a special letter or the system picked one that's already taken. No worries! On Windows 11, you can switch it up using the Settings app, Disk Management, Command Prompt, or PowerShell. Just remember, you can't mess with the "C:" because that's for the main storage. Also, "A:" and "B:" are off-limits—they used to be for floppy drives. Let's dive into how to give your drive a new letter on Windows 11.

4 Ways to assign drive letter in Windows 11

As for Windows 11 how to change drive letter, here are 4 ways for you:

Here's how you can change a drive letter on Windows 11:

Step 1. Press the  Windows key + I  to open the Settings  app and go to System > Storage .

Step 2. In the Storage management  section, click Advanced storage settings .

Step 3. Click on Disks & volumes .

Step 4. Choose the drive with the letter you want to change.

Step 5. Select the volume and click the Properties  button.

Step 6. Click Change drive letter .

Step 7. Pick a new letter for the device and click OK .

That's it! Your drive's letter on Windows 11 will be changed.

Here's how to change a drive letter using Disk Management:

Step 1. Press Windows + X  at the same time and select Disk Management  from the result list.

Step 2. Search for Create and format disk partition s and click to open the Disk Management  tool.

Step 3. Right-click on the volume and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths .

Step 4. Click the Change  button.

Step 5. Choose Assign the following drive letter . Pick a new letter for the drive.

Step 6. Click OK . And click OK  again.

Now, your drive will show up in File Explorer with the new letter.

To add a new drive letter using Command Prompt, follow these steps:

Step 1. Open Start, and search for Command Prompt , right-click the result, and choose Run as administrator .

Step 2. Type the command ` diskpart ` and press Enter .

Step 3. Type the command ` list volume ` and press Enter  to see a list of volumes.

Step 4. Type the command ` select volume 2 ` (replace " 2 " with the volume number you want to change).

Step 5. Type the command ` assign letter=H ` (replace " H " with the letter you want to use).

Step 6. Press Enter to execute the command.

After completing these steps, Command Prompt will assign the new letter to the storage.

To change a drive letter in Windows 11 using PowerShell, do the following:

Step 1. Open Start and search for PowerShell , right-click the result, and choose Run as administrator .

Step 2. Type the command ` Get-Dis k` and press Enter  to identify the hard drive.

Step 3. Type the command ` Get-Partition -DiskNumber 0 | Set-Partition -NewDriveLetter F ` (replace "0" with the disk number and "F" with the desired letter).

Step 4. Press Enter  to execute the command.

By following these steps, PowerShell will assign or change the drive letter for the specified internal or external storage.

Suggestion: backup your disk to prevent mistaken operation

Changing drive letter on Windows 11 is usually a relatively safe operation, but care still needs to be taken as it can have some impact on the system and applications. Here are some of the possible risks and considerations:

▪ Application associations : Some applications and system services may depend on specific drive letters. If you change the drive letter that a system or application expects, it may cause those applications to not work properly. ▪ System File Paths : If a system file path contains a drive letter, changing it may cause the system file not to be referenced correctly, which could cause problems. ▪ Boot problems : If the drive letter of the system partition is changed, it may cause boot problems. Make sure you know how to fix boot problems in case you need to.

Before getting Windows 11 change drive letter, it is recommended to perform a system backup so that you can restore the system to a previous state if a problem occurs. Also, make sure you know how to undo or restore drive letter changes if needed. AOMEI Backupper Standard  is the best free backup and restore software  which supports all Windows PC, including Windows 11/10/8/8.1/Vista and XP. For Server users, it has AOMEI Backupper Server .

▪ Create a disk backup automatically : You can backup the disk daily, weekly, or monthly to keep all the changes on it. ▪   Backup only changed files : By default, it utilizes Incremental Backup  as default backup method to backup only changed files, which saves much disk space. Also, Differential Backup is supported in the Professional version . ▪  Diversified backup devices : It allows you to create full disk backup in Windows 11 and save it to an external hard drive, USB flash drive, NAS, network drive, etc. ▪  Perform offline disk restore : It is capable of creating bootable rescue media  with USB or CD/DVD to boot the computer from it and then restore disk backup without booting into Windows 11.

Download this software and install it on your PC.

Best free Windows backup software for personal use.

Then open it, go to Backup > System Backup , and follow the on-screen prompt to complete the whole backup process.

In this post we discussed 4 efficient and simple ways to change drive letter in Windows 11. However, every operation comes with potential data loss risks. Then create a backup before you do any operation is suggested. You can use AOMEI Backupper to create a bootable media on any normally working computer, and then use it to boot the problematic computer into WinPE for further backup or troubleshooting.

If you want to protect unlimited computers within your company, you can pick AOMEI Backupper Technician . With the inbuilt AOMEI Image Deploy tool, you are also allowed to deploy/restore system image file on server-side computer to multiple client-side computers over network.

Maggie

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assign drive letter for usb device

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Assign a permanent drive letter across different computers

I'm creating a USB drive that includes several shortcuts to files within the same USB to save space and avoid duplicate files.

Obviously for this to work, it requires the letter of the drive to remain consistent.

Is it possible to keep the letter of a usb drive the same across different computers? If so, how?

Also, would it be possible to automate this? (i.e., you simply plug in the usb and it automatically assigns the drive letter). It will be used by people who are not necessarily computer literate so avoiding going into "Create and Format Disk Partitions" or having to click on a .cmd file, or something, would be ideal.

  • drive-letter

Jeremy's user avatar

  • This would require Auto Run to function on the computers in some way, and no modern OS allows this, for very obvious security reasons. –  music2myear Mar 5, 2019 at 22:41
  • This might do what you want, but would have to be installed on each system and configured. free for personal use.... uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html –  Moab Mar 5, 2019 at 23:13
  • I think your problem can be solved giving relative path to your shortcut file. Refer this sumtips.com/how-to/… –  Sankalp Kotewar Mar 9, 2019 at 6:29

The short answer is that there is no way to have a USB drive always get the same drive letter when attached to multiple systems.

To get the same drive letter you'd have to use a script to do this on insertion of the drive into the computer.

The problem is that Windows has disabled Autorun since late XP days.

The other problem is that you're assuming the computers will all have the save drive letter available.

The path to the solution is to recognize that your second paragraph is incorrect: It is NOT necessary for the USB drive to have the same drive letter each time it is mounted in order to access the contents programmatically.

There are ways to identify a drive and find the drive letter it is assigned and then reference it. Installers on any form of removable media have worked this way for decades.

You should look into relative paths, which allow shortcuts and files to refer to each other so long as they are only in the same position relative to each other, and where absolute paths may change.

You should also spend some time investigating whether there is a more effective way to store the files you are storing on this USB that meets your needs. While your question lacks a lot of information necessary to go deeper, there are other solutions out there which would have the same result but are designed for specific content types.

music2myear's user avatar

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

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assign drive letter for usb device

assign drive letter for usb device

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Windows 10 will not assign a drive letter when connecting a USB Drive (will not release the drive letter when disconnecting as well)

I have a very strange problem. I just purchased a new Western Digital My Passport 2 TB USB drive. I have formatted the drive in Fat32 (Required for my device).

  • When I connect the drive the Disk Management application sees the drive but no Driver letter is assigned.
  • Disk Management reports the drive as a Healthy Active Primary partition.
  • I right click on the drive and assign a drive letter which works as expected. I can now access the drive via file explorer and read and write files.
  • If I disconnect the drive, the drive letter remains visible in explorer and changes to "Local Disk"
  • If I reconnect the drive once again a drive letter is not assigned (original drive letter remains listed as "Local Disk" and is inaccessible). 
  • I can reassign another drive letter as I did in step 3 above and the issue repeats over and over. Of course each time I have less and less drive letters available to me since the assigned letters never release.
  • In order to reclaim the drive letters I have to reboot (after disabling fast startup in power options, so hardware is re-initialized during reboot). Once reboot is complete all the "Local Disks" created during this process are removed and the drive letters are once again available for assignment.
  • This process repeats over and over

Other Observations:

  • I have another 4TB Western Digital My Passport Ultra drive (formatted in Fat32), that does NOT exhibit this behavior. It works normally
  • The problematic drive works fine when connecting to my Mac.
  • All other USB drives and sticks I own do NOT exhibit this behavior.
  • I confirmed in Diskpart that Automatic mounting of new volumes is enable
  • I contacted Western Digital and after working with them for a while their assessment was since the drive works when a drive letter is manually assigned and works fine in a Mac the drive is fine, they suspect this is an issue with Windows 10.
  • As a test I also reformatted the drive using NTFS and the issue still happens

Any assistance is appreciated

Report abuse

Hi CantonVideoMan ,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

I appreciate the time you have taken to resolve this issue. I went through the steps you have performed. However, there are some of the steps which can resolve this issue. I would suggest you to follow these steps and let us know the results.

Method 1: Start the service.  

Press Windows and R key together on your Keyboard.

Type Services.msc and hit enter.

Search for Virtual Disk service.

  Double click on Virtual Disk service, select the startup type as Automatic and click on Start to start the service.

Method 2: Auto mount.

Tap on the Windows key on your keyboard.

Type: command prompt

In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt , and then click Run as Administrator .

When you are prompted by User Account Control, click  Continue .

Type the following commands.

Automount (This command will tell you, if it is enabled or disabled.)

Automount enable

Automount scrub (If automount is already enabled, type this command to clear the saved associations of system drive letters.)

Lastly type: Exit

Restart the computer and plug in the USB now to check external USB drives.

assign drive letter for usb device

L et us know if you need further assitsnace regarding this issue, we will be happy to assist you regarding this issue.

Hope it helps.  

Roohi Taj S

Microsoft Community - Moderator

111 people found this reply helpful

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IMAGES

  1. How to Assign the Same Drive Letter for USB Drive in Windows

    assign drive letter for usb device

  2. How to assign a permanent drive letter to a USB drive on Windows

    assign drive letter for usb device

  3. windows 7

    assign drive letter for usb device

  4. How to Format USB Drive using Command Prompt in Windows

    assign drive letter for usb device

  5. How to Assign Drive letter or path from USB Windows

    assign drive letter for usb device

  6. Three Easy Ways to Change USB Drive Letter in Windows 11, 10, 8 or 7

    assign drive letter for usb device

VIDEO

  1. How to Change Drive Letter in Windows 11

  2. How to use USB Drive

  3. How to Change a Drive Letter of a USB Drive

  4. How to format and/or assign drive letters using Disk Management in Windows 7

  5. What File System Should I Use for My USB Drive?

  6. sata hard drive boots incompatible fix. non raid fix

COMMENTS

  1. Three Easy Ways to Change USB Drive Letter in Windows 11, 10, 8 or 7

    Step 1. Press Windows + R in Windows 11/10/8/7, input " diskmgmt.msc " and hit Enter key to open Disk Management. Step 2. Right-click the USB partition that you want to change the drive letter and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths.... Step 3. In the pop-up window, click Change… .

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

    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...

  3. Windows Tip: Assign Permanent Letters to Removable Drives

    The neat thing is you can assign a permanent letter to a USB drive directly with Windows 7, 8.1, and Windows 10. It's an easy process, and there's no need to install any third-party...

  4. How to Assign a Persistent Drive Letter to a USB Drive in Windows

    Right-click the USB drive to which you want to assign a persistent drive letter and then click "Change Drive Letter and Paths." The "Change Drive Letter and Paths" window the selected drive's current drive letter. To change the drive letter, click "Change."

  5. How to Assign the Same Drive Letter for USB Drive in Windows

    Go to the MountedDevices registry branch below: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices Rename the \DosDevices\G: value to \DosDevices\R: Exit the Registry Editor. Next time when you connect the same drive, Windows assigns it the R: drive letter if it's free. USB Drive Letter Manager (USBDLM)

  6. How to assign a drive letter in Windows 10

    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...

  7. batch

    Unlike DOS 6.22, where you can permanently assign drive letter designations (e.g. Drive C: = Hard Disk Bootable Partition, Drive D: = CD Drive, or any additional partitions you want to create with FDISK, depending on which version of Windows you are running), if in Windows XP I connect a USB flash drive, it will assign it drive E:, in Windows Vi...

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

    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. It will be "Create and format hard disk partitions." You could also hit Windows+X or right-click the Start button, and then click "Disk Management."

  9. Change and Assign Drive Letter in Windows 10

    1 Press the Win + R keys to open Run, type diskmgmt.msc into Run, and click/tap on OK to open Disk Management. 2 Right click or press and hold on the drive (ex: "F") you want to add or change the drive letter, and click/tap on Change Drive Letter and Paths. (see screenshot below) 3 Click/tap on the Change button. (see screenshot below)

  10. Assign Permanent Drive Letter to USB Devices in Windows

    Press Win+R to open the Run dialog, and type in diskmgmt.msc All devices currently connected via the USB is listed in the Disk Management Console. Locate your USB drive, right-click on it, and choose "Change Drive Letters and Paths…" from the pop-up menu. In the new dialog that opens, click on Change button - this will open another dialog

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

    Press the Start key and type the word CMD, right click on the command prompt and select Run as administrator, enter the following commands one by one followed by the Enter key: •- DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Scanhealth •- DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth •- DISM.exe /online /cleanup-image /startcomponentcleanup •- sfc /scannow

  12. How to Use the Diskpart Utility to Assign and Remove Drive Letters

    select volume 3. You should see a message that the volume is now selected. At this point you can easily assign a new drive letter. Just type in this command, substituting R for the drive letter you'd like to use: assign letter=R. Make sure to hit enter once you're done, of course. Once you've made that change, your drive should show up again as ...

  13. Change a drive letter

    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. Tip 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.

  14. Windows Doesn't Automatically Assign Drive Letters

    To assign a drive letter to it, right-click on the partition and select " Change Drive Letter and Path ". In the window that appears, click the " Add " button, select " Assign the following drive letter ", select the letter you want to assign to the drive (for example, H: ) in the drop-down list, and click OK.

  15. 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.

  16. Windows 10 fails to assign drive letter to external USB hard disk drive

    1. Open a CMD prompt with Administrator previlege. 2. Type in DiskPart and hit Enter. 3. Run the following commands one by one. Case insensitive. List Disk Identify your external drive from the given list manually. Assume it's disk # (a number), and run Select Disk # Select Partition 1 Attribute Volume Clear NoDefaultDriveLetter Done.

  17. Change Drive Letter in Windows for an External USB Device

    By default, Windows gave my portable USB drive the letter H. If your drive has no letter or you want to change it, then right-click in the white space to the right of the drive letter and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths. Click the Change button in the dialog box and then pick a new letter from the drop-down list.

  18. USB mass storage devices recognized, but not assigned drive letter

    In reply to deleted message. To assign drives: Open Command Prompt> type 'diskpart' & press Enter > type 'rescan' & press Enter. You need admin account to perform this task. OR, Right click on Computer icon on Desktop > Manage > Double click on Disk management > See if there any unassigned drive exist or not.

  19. How to Change Drive Letter on Windows 11(4 Ways)

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