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How to Remove and Assign Drive Letters in Windows with Diskpart

Diskpart is one of the most powerful Windows command line utilities which first appeared in Windows XP. Diskpart is mainly used by Windows administrators to manage tasks like partition management, formatting, creating, re-sizing and getting a detailed information regarding the hard disk or other removable disks attached to the computer. Even though you have a built-in GUI application called Disk Management utility in Windows, Diskpart is much more flexible and works well in a server environment where you need to set up some advanced features like RAID.

Note: This post isn’t intended for beginners, and doing something wrong while using Diskpart utility may cause drive failures and data losses, so make sure that you have a good backup before continuing. You have been warned.

Assign Drive Letter Using Diskpart

Assigning a new drive letter to a partition or removable device using Diskpart is really easy. First, search for the command prompt in the Start menu, right click on it and select the option “Run as administrator.” If you are using Windows 8, press “Win + X” to open the power user menu and select the option “Command Prompt (Admin).”

The above action will open the command prompt window with administrative rights. Here enter the following command to start the Diskpart utility.

The next step is to list all the volumes in your computer so that you can clearly see all the volume numbers and drive letters of your hard disk partitions and any other removable devices. Use the command below to list all the volumes.

Once the Diskpart utility lists all the volumes, take a note of the volume number of the drive you want to assign a new drive letter. In my case, I’m trying to assign a new drive letter to the drive I:\ , so my volume number is 7 . Now execute the following command to select the volume while replacing the # symbol with an actual volume number.

Once the volume is selected, use the following command to assign a new drive letter. Don’t forget to replace the letter “V” with the drive letter you want to assign.

That’s all there is to do; you have successfully changed or re-assigned a new drive letter to a partition or a removable drive in Windows. In fact, if you open the Windows explorer, you can see that the change is reflected immediately.

Remove Drive Letter using Diskpart

Before moving any further, removing or un-assigning drive letter will effectively hide the drive or partition from plain sight, i.e. you cannot see that drive in the Windows explorer. To remove a drive letter, follow the above steps 1 through 4 and then use the below command to remove the drive letter of a drive or partition. Don’t forget to replace the letter “I” with the actual drive letter.

As soon as you have done that, Diskpart will remove the drive letter for that volume. If you list the volumes again, you will see that the drive you just interacted with will have no drive letter next to it.

Moreover, if you navigate to the Windows explorer, you will see that the drive which got un-assigned isn’t listed anymore. But again, always be careful while you are messing around with Diskpart utility; it may cause irrecoverable data loss if used incorrectly.

Hopefully that helps, and do comment below if you face any problems while following the steps or to simply share your thoughts.

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Vamsi is a tech and WordPress geek who enjoys writing how-to guides and messing with his computer and software in general. When not writing for MTE, he writes for he shares tips, tricks, and lifehacks on his own blog Stugon.

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Assign, change or remove Drive Letter with Diskpart

Diskpart is very powerful Windows Utility, which allows certain number of operation with hard disk. In this article we will show you how to assign, change or remove drive letter with Diskpart using.

You bought hard drive for Backup, but it has automaticaly gained letter D . You want to change it to E . First we need to open Command Prompt with Administrator Rights.

Type cmd into the search box, and then right-click and choose Run as administrator. If you have Windows 10 use the CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER keyboard shortcut on Screen 1 , or click on Start with right click and choose Command Prompt (Admin) on Screen 2 .

When Command Prompt pops up, run the diskpart command.

Now we type list volume to list our volumes, we need to know the number of our volume.

In our case our hard drive is Volume 3 and that number is 3 .

Now we use command select volume 3 to make changes to that volume. If your volume number is different, you need to replace number  3 with the number from your volume. After we have selected our volume we use command assign letter E , to assing letter E to our volume.

Now you know how to change or assign another letter to your volume, also if you need you can remove volume letter with command remove letter E

For security reasons you cannot change or remove your current system disk letter (esp C ), it will not work.

To exit diskpart type in exit .

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[Free Guide]: Use Diskpart Assign Drive Letter in Windows 11, 10, 8, 7

This post will show you how to use Diskpart assign drive letter in Windows 11, 10, 8, 7. In addition, another free GUI software will be introduced to assign or remove the drive letters.

By Cherry / Updated on November 9, 2023

│ Use Diskpart to assign drive letter

│ assign drive letter via disk management, faqs about how to use diskpart to assign drive letter, why use diskpart to assign a drive letter.

As we all know, Windows assigns drive letters to all available drives on your computer, such as internal hard drives, optical drives, SD cards, and external USB drives. A drive letter is an alphabetical identifier for a volume, and each drive letter can be used once on a computer.

But sometimes, users want to change the original drive letter to another drive letter. Or due to some operation, the drive letter will not be available and the user needs to assign a new drive letter. So a computer-experienced user might assign drive letter by Diskpart, as this is the faster way. The purpose of this article is to provide you with some methods for assigning a drive letter , including Diskpart, Disk Management, and another easier way.

Step-by-step: Assign drive letter by Windows built-in tools

Windows OS users know they have two amazing tools for managing disks and partitions - Disk Management and Diskpart.

The Disk Management tool in Windows provides you with an easy-to-use graphical interface to manage your disks with a single mouse click. And Diskpart is a command-line tool that allows you to quickly manage your disks or partitions from the command prompt. The next section will show you how to use Disk Management and Diskpart to assign drive letters.

Diskpart is a Windows built-in tool that you can use to manage your hard drive, like format disk partition, create partition, delete partition , etc. Well, how to use Command Prompt Diskpart assign drive letter? The following parts may help you a lot.

Step 1. Press "Windows + R". Then, type "diskpart" and press Enter.

Step 2. Type in "list volume" and press Enter. Now, you can see all volumes on PC.

Step 3. Type in "select volume 7" and press Enter(here take volume 7 as an example).

Step 4. Finally, type in“assign letter=F” and press Enter.

If you want to remove the drive letter, type “remove letter=X”(X is the drive letter you want to remove).

Actually, you may assign a drive letter when you create a new one. For that, you need to create partition first. After creating a partition, type “assign letter=?” to that partition. Or, if there is some volume hidden, it will not have the drive letter, to unhide it, you need to assign a drive letter for it. 

In addition to Diskpart, Disk Management may be another good choice to assign drive letter.

Step 1. Press “Win + R” to open the “Run” window and type diskmgmt.msc in the box.

Step 2. Right-click the drive you want to assign, and select change Drive Letter and Paths in the pop-up window.

Step 3. Click Change to summon the next window.

Notice: If you want to remove the drive letter of your partition, you can select "Remove" and follow the instructions step by step.

Step 4. After that, you should choose the new drive letter from the drop list, and then, click OK.

Now, do you understand how to use Disk Management and Diskpart assign drive letter?

Although it's convenient for most people, you need to be aware that sometimes you can't assign drive letter successfully, because Disk Management and Diskpart only support assigning drive letter with FAT or NTFS. When the drive's file system is another type, you can format it to NTFS or FAT, or use another method to assign a drive letter.

Diskpart assign drive letter alternative

Disk Management and Diskpart are not perfect because they have limitations. Fortunately, there is an easier way to make up for their shortcomings perfectly.

AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is a completely free third-party partition manager. It supports users to assign drive letters through a more friendly interface, which can be done with just a few clicks, much simpler than Diskpart. Also, it can assign drive letter on any file system. More importantly, it has more complete functions and allows you to manage disks flexibly.

Step 1. Launch AOMEI Partition Assistant, it will show you all storage devices in the main interface. you can see the removable drive doesn't have a drive letter. If you want to assign a drive letter for the drive, here you need to right click it, select Advanced-> Change Drive Letter.

Step 2. Then, select a drive letter for the drive.

Step 3. Click Apply to submit the task.

Now, do you know how to use Diskpart assign drive letter? If you are a user who has a computer background, Diskpart may be the quickest method to assign the drive letter. However, if you are normal user, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is the correct choice.  After you upgrade to AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional , there are more advanced features you can try, such as allocating free space from one drive to C, and Move the installed app from one drive to another.

Last but not least, although the system drive letter can be changed, do not do it because that would make the system unable to boot.

Can I remove a drive letter assignment using Diskpart? Yes, you can remove a drive letter assignment by using the "remove" command. For example, "remove letter=E" will remove the E drive letter from the selected volume.

Are there any restrictions on the drive letters I can assign using Diskpart? Drive letters A and B are traditionally reserved for floppy disk drives. You can assign any available drive letter from C to Z to a partition or volume, provided it's not already in use.

Do I need to be careful when using Diskpart to avoid data loss? Yes, you should be cautious when using Diskpart, especially if you're deleting partitions or making significant changes to disk configurations. Make sure you select the correct volume and drive letter to avoid accidental data loss.

Can I assign drive letter on a hidden drive? Yes, you can. Be very cautious when assigning a drive letter to a hidden drive or volume, as it might contain system or recovery files.

Press the Windows key, type "cmd" or "Command Prompt," right-click it, and choose "Run as administrator". In the Command Prompt window, type "diskpart" and press Enter. This will open the Diskpart utility. To see a list of all volumes, including hidden ones, type list volume and press Enter. Use the "select volume" command to choose the hidden volume. Replace "X" with the volume number or letter. A ssign a drive letter to the selected hidden volume, use the "assign letter=Y" command. Once you've successfully assigned the drive letter, you can exit Diskpart.

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Change the drive letter in the command prompt

• Open an elevated command prompt .
• Type diskpart .

You are done. You can close the Diskpart window.

Change the drive letter in PowerShell

• Open  an elevated PowerShell instance .

• Finally, type the following command: Remove-PartitionAccessPath -DiskNumber YOUR_DISK_NUMBER -PartitionNumber YOUR_PARTITION_NUMBER -Accesspath CURRENT_DRIVE_LETTER:

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4 thoughts on “How to Remove a Drive Letter in Windows 10”

This topic seems to now be out-of-date. In step 3 in Disk Management, the only option available in the context menu is ‘Help’. There is no “Change Drive Letter …” option anymore.

It depends on your hardware and especially on the drive type you have installed. Also, your user account might be missing administrative account privileges.

It works… kind of…

Yes, it removes the drive letter, until I reboot. Then the drive letter is back again.

Drive letter exists, but no partition assigned to it. Windows…

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

Diskpart is a well-known Windows built-in disk partition utility used to format /create/delete partitions,  online/offline disk , wipe disks, etc. However, a lot of users are unclear about how to use this utility. For example, here a user posted a question about how to change drive letter diskpart on the answers.microsoft.com forum:

Is there a way to unassign drive letter diskpart? Windows will not assign a drive letter automatically when I inserted a Windows installation media. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/manually-assigning-a-drive-letter-using/bbb3baf6-cda4-4d06-b431-eae9e975a5c7

How to Unassign Drive Letter Diskpart in Windows 11/10

A drive letter is a single alphabetic character from A to Z assigned by Windows to a drive or partition connected to the computer. Sometimes, you may need to change drive letter diskpart in some situations. How to let diskpart unassign letter in Windows 11/10? Here are detailed steps:

If you remove the drive letter from a partition, it will no longer show as a drive in  File Explorer  and the unassigned drive letter can be available to other partitions.

Step 1.  Press  Win + R  keys to open the  Run  dialog box, and then type  diskpart  in it and press  Enter . Then click on  Yes  to open the tool in Command Prompt.

Step 2. To let diskpart unassign drive letter, type the following commands in order and press Enter after each one.

• list volume
• select volume * (replace * with the partition number you want to remove its drive letter from)
• remove letter=K (replace K with the drive letter that you want to remove)

The process of diskpart assign letter is very simple and similar to removing a drive letter. To assign drive letter diskpart, you can open the Command Prompt window again as we explained above, type the following commands in order and press Enter after each one.

• select volume 10
• assign letter=k

Although Diskpart is a practical partition manager in Windows, sometimes this utility can run into various errors such as “ DiskPart failed to clear disk attributes ”, “ Diskpart virtual disk service error ”, “failed to assign a drive letter”, etc. Is there an alternative to diskpart unassign drive letter? Of course, yes! Let’s keep reading.

Best Alternative to Diskpart Remove Drive Letter

If you can’t change drive letter CMD or Diskpart, MiniTool Partition Wizard is the best alternative. It is a trustworthy and comprehensive partition manager that allows you to change drive letters easily. Besides, this partition software can be used to extend/resize/hide/copy/format partitions, migrate OS , convert FTA to NTFS without data loss , change cluster size, recover lost data , and more.

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

Step 1. Launch the program to enter its main interface, right-click the partition, and select Change Letter from the pop-up menu.

Step 2. If you want to remove the drive letter, select None from the New Drive Letter drop-down menu and click on OK to save the change. Alternatively, you can select a new drive letter from the drop-down menu to assign a drive letter for the partition.

Step 3. Click on Apply to execute the change.

If you just want to hide the partition in File Explorer rather than remove the drive letter, you can select the partition and click Hide Partition > Apply from the left action panel.

How to make diskpart remove drive letter in Windows 11/10? All detailed steps have been illustrated. Now, you can change drive letter using diskpart/CMD. If it doesn’t work, you can use a better alternative – MiniTool Partition Wizard.

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How to remove drive letter on Windows 11

Here are four ways to remove a letter from a drive on Windows 11.

You can remove a drive letter on Windows 11 in at least four ways, and in this guide, you will learn how.

Windows 11 automatically assigns a drive letter to every device storage connected to the computer, including internal drives, USB drives, DVD or Blu-ray devices, and mapped network drives to register the logical volume and present them to you in File Explorer or any other app. 

However, sometimes, you may need to remove a drive letter for various reasons. For example, you may want to keep the drive hidden or the system assigned letters to the hidden boot partitions by mistake. (Use these instructions to change or re-assign a drive letter.)

Whatever the reason, on Windows 11, you can remove a drive letter in at least four ways using the Settings app, Disk Management, Command Prompt, and PowerShell.

This guide will teach you how to remove a drive letter on Windows 11.

Remove drive letter on Windows 11

Remove drive letter from disk management, remove drive letter from command prompt, remove drive letter from powershell.

To remove the drive letter on Windows 11, use these steps:

Open Settings on Windows 11.

Click on System .

Click the Storage page.

Under the “Storage management” section, click the “Advanced storage settings” option.

Click on Disks & volumes .

Select the drive with the volume with the letter to remove.

Select the volume and click the Properties button.

Click the “Change drive letter” button.

Select the None option to remove the drive letter on Windows 11.

Click the OK button.

Once you complete the steps, the system will remove the drive letter on Windows 11.

To remove the drive letter from Disk Management, use these steps:

Open Start .

Search for Create and format disk partitions and click the top result to open the Disk Management tool.

Right-click the volume and select the “Change Drive Letter and Paths” option.

Select the drive letter and click the Remove button.

After completing the steps, the drive will no longer appear in File Explorer.

To add a new drive letter from Command Prompt, use these steps:

Search for Command Prompt , right-click the result, and select the Run as administrator option.

Type the following command to launch diskpart and press Enter :

Type the following command to list the volumes and press Enter :

Type the following command to select the volume (drive) to remove the letter and press Enter :

In the command, change “4” for the number corresponding to the storage to remove the letter.

Type the following command to remove the drive letter on Windows 11 and press Enter :

In the command, change “E” for the letter to remove.

Once you complete the steps, the diskpart tool will letter for the volume.

To remove a drive letter from PowerShell, use these steps:

Search for PowerShell , right-click the result, and select the Run as administrator option.

Type the following command to identify the hard drive and press Enter :

Type the following command to identify the partition to remove the drive letter and press Enter :

In the command, change “4” with the disk number to remove the letter.

Type the following command to remove the drive letter and press Enter :

In the command, change “4” with the disk number and “2” for the partition holding the drive letter. Also, change “E” for the drive letter to remove.

After completing the steps, PowerShell will remove the letter for the drive, making it inaccessible.

Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 14 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 20 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter) , YouTube , LinkedIn and About.me . Email him at [email protected] .

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Manually assigning a drive letter using CMD/Diskpart

[Localization from this article: Manuelles Zuweisen eines Laufwerksbuchstaben mit CMD bzw. Diskpart - Microsoft Community ]

Technical Difficulty: Expert

Applies to: Windows 10 & 11

In some cases, Windows will not assign a drive letter automatically to an inserted drive. For example, this can happen when using a Windows installation media.

In that case, you can use diskpart to manually assign a drive letter.

NOTE: If your drive doesn't get assigned a drive letter, even though you are in a normal Windows environment, this can indicate a problem with the drive. Please back up your files in that case.

Open up a command prompt (CMD/PowerShell).

Type "diskpart" to start up diskpart. You will see the prompt change to "DISKPART>".

Type "list vol" to list all available volumes. You can identify the drive by size and file system.

Additionally, the volume doesn't currently have a drive letter.

Select the volume using "sel vol <number>".

Assign the drive letter using "assign letter=<letter>".

You can now exit diskpart by typing "exit" and switch to the drive using "<letter>:".

It should also be available from Windows Explorer now.

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Thanks for the tutorial, I don't think I need to use Google for it anymore!

Congrats on Article Author too! :)

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Thanks for the tutorial, I don't think I need to use Google for it anymore! Congrats on Article Author too! :)

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Thanks! Happy I could help! :)

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Very helpful Thanks.

3 people found this comment helpful

Thank for this informative article.

I ran this in PowerShell PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> GWMI -namespace root\cimv2 -class win32_volume | FL -property DriveLetter, DeviceID

The results are below. I need to know more about the DriveLetter, that does not have a letter and I cannot give it a letter, as you can see in DiskPart.

I'm sure someone personally hacking my computer. I'm wondering if this them hiding on it, and that is why I someone is typing over me and has more control at times of my computer then I do. Maybe a hidden AD Hoc.

I have searched for this on Google I'm either getting blocked or there is no information out there on this.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> GWMI -namespace root\cimv2 -class win32_volume | FL -property DriveLetter, DeviceID

DriveLetter : B:

DeviceID : \\?\Volume{26xxxxxx--xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxx}\

DriveLetter : C:

DriveLetter :

DeviceID : \\?\Volume{d5xxxxxx--xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxx}\

DriveLetter : D:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> DiskPart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.19041.1

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.

On computer: My Computer

DISKPART> List Volume

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info

---------- --- --- -------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------

Volume 0 D RAW DVD-ROM 2048 B Healthy

Volume 1 B System Rese NTFS Partition 100 MB Healthy System

Volume 2 C NTFS Partition 698 GB Healthy Boot

2 people found this comment helpful

I followed the instructions to CHANGE the letters assigned for three external hard drives. (The computer had named them E, F, G but gave the names to the wrong external hard drive) I changed the letters to the correct names singly (I disconnected the two not being adjusted) Now, I have 2 E, 2 F, 2 G names in the list (when accessed through File Explorer. When I click on "This PC", it shows just the one of each. If I click on either, or both of the same letter name, the same exact files will open. This is annoying. Anyone have a clue what can be done? This is on a brand new computer running Windows 11.

Sorry about the late reply.

That sounds weird... Usually, windows doesn't allow you to assign a drive letter twice.

If you want to change the letters, you usually have to remove them first and then reassign them.

Can you send me a screenshot of disk management, and of the list of volumes?

the partition that is not shown in diskpart is most likely some sort of recovery or reserved partition.

This is not the typical way of hiding an infection with malware...

Also, do note that your ESP (Volume B) should not be mounted, since modifying it can corrupt your Bootloader.

As for the suspected hacking, what symptoms did you observe? Mouse moving on its own, high resource usage, unexpected firewall prompts? Other things?

If you have a compromised system, its almost impossible to clean it from infections without doing a clean install of windows. I would suggest you do that if you suspect an infection. It will take time though and will delete everything on your PC. (Including files, programs, settings.) Create a backup before you reinstall.

There are no viruses nor malware on this computer. I believe it is a reflection of the original name choice. The information contained on each external hard drive is identical, yet when I go into MY PC, it only shows one set of externals. I am afraid to delete one of the duplicates because it might be just mirrored and it will make everything go away. I have way too many things on these external hard drives to lose any of them.

Thanks for your input. Jan

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Change a drive letter

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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 .

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 .

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.

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Additional resources

How to Assign Change or Remove a Drive Letter

Your instructor will demonstrate how to:

Assign, change end remove a drive Setter by using Dish Management

Assign, changs and remove a drive letter by using DiskPart

Introduction

Procedure using Disk Management

You can use either Disk Management or DiskPart to assign, change or remove drive letters on partition. As an administrator, you will manage disk drive letters by using these tools.

To assign, change, or remove drive letters by using Disk Management:

1. In Computer Management, open Disk Management.

2. Right-click a partition, logical drive, or volume, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.

3. Do one of the following:

• To assign a drive letter, click Add, and then click the drive letter that you want to use.

To modify a drive letter, click it, click Change, and then click the drive letter that you want to use.

♦ To remove a drive letter, click it, and then click Remove.

Procedure using DiskPart

To assign, change, or remove a drive letter by using DiskPart:

1. Open Command prompt, and then type diskpart

2. At the DISKPART prompt, type list volume. Make note of the number of the volume whose drive letter you want to assign, change, or remove.

3. At the DISKPART prompt, type select volume n (where n is the number of the volume whose drive letter you want to assign, change, or remove).

4. At the DISKPART prompt, type one of the following:

a. assign letter=L (where L is the drive letter that you want to assign or change)

b. remove letter=L (where L is the drive letter that you want to remove)

Continue reading here: What Is a Mounted Drive

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Readers' Questions

How to reassign drive letter?

To reassign a drive letter in Windows, you can follow these steps: Press the Windows key + X on your keyboard to open the Power User menu and select "Disk Management" from the list. This will open the Disk Management window. In the Disk Management window, you will see a list of all your connected drives. Right-click on the drive that you want to reassign a letter to. From the right-click menu, select "Change Drive Letter and Paths". In the next window, click on the "Change" button. Select a new drive letter from the drop-down menu. Make sure to choose a letter that is not already assigned to another drive. Click "OK" to confirm the change. You will receive a warning message stating that some programs may rely on drive letters to function properly. Click "Yes" to proceed. Windows will assign the new drive letter to the selected drive. You can now close the Disk Management window. Note: Be cautious while reassigning drive letters, as some applications may rely on specific drive letters to function properly. Always ensure that you are not reassigning a drive letter that is being used by important applications or system functions.

How to switch drive letters?

Open This PC and right-click a drive. Select Rename and enter the new drive letter. Open the Command Prompt and type: DiskPart. Type the command: List Volume. Find the volume you want to change the drive letter of and enter the command: Select Volume #. Enter the command: Assign Letter=#, replacing the # with the new drive letter. Type Exit to leave DiskPart. Restart your computer.

How do i assign a drive letter to an external hard drive?

Connect your external hard drive to your computer. Open the File Explorer. Right-click on ‘This PC’ and select ‘Manage’. Select ‘Disk Management’ from the left pane. Your external hard drive will be listed under ‘Disk’. Right-click on your external hard drive and select ‘Change Drive Letter and Paths’. Click ‘Change’ and then select the new drive letter you wish to assign. Click ‘OK’ to save the changes.

How to reassign drive letters?

Open the Disk Management console by pressing the Windows Key + R, typing “diskmgmt.msc”, and pressing Enter. Right-click the disk or partition that you want to change the drive letter for and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths." Select the drive letter and click Change. Choose the new drive letter and click OK. Click OK to confirm the changes.

How to change hard drive letter?

Open the File Explorer. Right-click on the hard drive's icon. Select the “Change Drive Letter and Paths” option from the context menu. Click the “Change” button. Select a new letter from the drop-down menu. Click the “OK” button.

How to assign disk drive letter?

Open File Explorer. Right-click on the drive you want to assign a letter to. Select Change Drive Letter and Paths. Choose Change. Pick the letter you want to assign and click OK. Click Yes on the confirmation window. Click OK to close the window.

How to change volume letter using diskpart?

Launch the Diskpart command prompt by typing "diskpart" into the Start menu and selecting the app. Type "list volume" and press Enter. Select the volume you wish to change the letter of. Type "select volume X" (X being the volume number) and press Enter. Type "assign letter=Y" (Y being the new letter) and press Enter. Exit the Diskpart command prompt by typing "exit" and pressing Enter.

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How can I change Windows 10 drive letter assignments outside a full load of the OS?

I have the following disks:

I want to replace D: with a new SSD, but Windows loads various background services from that drive, so I want to avoid trying to 'hot-swap' the drive letter while the OS is up.

My plan was:

• Install the new SSD, let it auto-assign to J:
• Clone D: 's partition to J:
• Reboot into recovery mode
• Use diskpart to switch drive letters for J: and D:
• Boot back into Windows

However when I load diskpart in recovery mode, the drive letter assignment is different to when Windows is loaded - it's defaulting to auto-assigning by-device-then-partition, eg D: is assigned to disk 2, partition 1.

How can I edit the drive letter assignments that Windows uses once loaded, but without loading it?

2 Answers 2

I ended up using safe mode to do the drive letter swap; As far as I was able to tell by reading around, 3rd-party background services don't get loaded in safe mode, and that turned out to be the case for those running from the old partitions here.

It was useful to first enable F8 safe mode by, per this post , issuing the command:

(Otherwise the only way to enter safe mode without first loading normal mode is to kill the power during boot over and over again until Windows panics and tries to repair itself.)

I suspect that it might have been possible to edit the drive letter assignments by loading and editing the registry in recovery mode, but that was a rabbit-hole that I didn't want to explore unless absolutely necessary.

Whenever I've done a drive replacement, even for Windows, I've used Linux to clone the old drive to the new drive using dd (making sure to shrink/move any partitions first if the replacement is smaller, and expand to fill the drive space once cloned). I have Linux installed, but most live installers or miniature distros would include all you'd need for this. Using dd to clone a disk is a risky exercise as you can permanently lose all the data on your disk(s) if you don't get the input and output flags for dd correct - you need to make doubly and perhaps triply sure that you get the drives correct. It's definitely a "do this at your own risk" solution, I am not recommending that you do it and can offer no support if it goes wrong. If you already know how to to this, you are comfortable with accepting the risks, and you have good backups on another drive (preferably offline), there are instructions on how to clone a disk using dd here: https://medium.com/codex/the-art-of-cloning-disks-the-dd-command-primary-usage-patterns-ff377b7616c9 The same can probably be achieved by other disk cloning tools that are more user-friendly than dd , so those may be a better option for you if you're not familiar with Linux or want to keep the solution Windows-only. However, after doing that, you can remove the old drive, insert the new drive, and Windows will (or at least should) use the new drive as though nothing happened. Cloning the drive copies across the device/partition/volume identifiers, so you don't need to tell Windows to look somewhere else for the disk it's trying to find.

• Nice answer, but not for this question. 🙁 –  MGM Oct 28, 2023 at 8:55

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Assign / remove drive letters with diskpart

Use Diskpart to assign a drive letter to a partition.

Table of content

Assign drive letter

To assign a drive letter to a partition with Diskpart, we start “ diskpart ” with admin rights. Then we use “ list disk ” to display the drives.

With “ select disk x “, where x is the number, we select the drive.

With “ list vol ” we display the volumes. Here, too, we now select the desired volume “ select vol x “. X is also the number from the list.

Now we enter “ assign letter=x “. X is the drive letter here.

With “exit” we can leave “diskpart” again. Afterwards, our volume/partition is ready under the drive letter.

Remove drive letters

Removing drive letters is done in the same way. We select the drive and volume. To remove, we then use the following command:

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PC won't boot? Here's how to recover Windows back to a working state

It's probably hard to think of a situation more frustrating than having your laptop or PC stop working altogether for reasons unknown. It's thankfully not that common, but any time it occurs is one time too many, and if you cna't even boot your computer, you might think you're out of luck. Thankfully, that's not the case, and you can always get back to a working state.

There are plenty of things you can try if your PC isn't booting, so let's start from the basics and go up from there. First off, try booting your PC without USB devices plugged in and see if that might be the problem. If that doesn't help, try the fixes below.

Use Startup Repair

When your computer fails to boot twice in a row, Windows will take you to Automatic Repair, which can help you address issues with your PC not booting. There are a few things we can try here, but the easiest and first method to try is Startup Repair. Here's how it works:

1. Try to boot your PC three times in order to get it to load Automatic Repair.

2. Click Advanced options , then choose Troubleshoot and then Advanced options .

3. Here, click Startup Repair .

Windows will attempt to diagnose and fix any problems that may be stopping your PC from booting properly. If you see a successful message, reboot your computer and try again.

Uninstall updates

If you believe the issues you're having were caused by an update you installed recently, you can try uninstalling it. For this, try these steps:

1. Once you've reached the Automatic Repair screen, click Advanced options > Troubleshoot > Advanced options .

2. Here, click Uninstall updates .

3. Click Uninstall latest quality update if it was a general cumulative update that caused the issue. You can also try Uninstall latest feature update if you installed a big update like Windows 11 version 24H2.

If the issues were caused by these updates, they should be mitigated by this method. You may need to temporarily pause updates in order to prevent the issue from happening again, or update your device drivers to make sure there isn't some kind of compatibility issue.

Enter Safe Mode to uninstall drivers

Sometimes, boot problems in Windows 11 can be caused by faulty or incompatible drivers. A good way to test this is to enter Safe Mode, which loads Windows with only the minimum required drivers. If Windows boots into Safe Mode, it's likely that drivers are the issue, so you already know where to start. To boot into Safe Mode, follow these steps:

1. Once you get to Automatic Repair, click Advanced options > Troubleshoot > Advanced options .

2. Click Startup settings and then Restart .

3. Once the computer restarts, press 4 on your keyboard to boot into Safe Mode.

From there, try to look for any devices that were recently updated or that you plugged in for the first time. If you already know what driver could be causing the problem, uninstall it using either Device Manager or, in the case of graphics drivers, Display Driver Uninstaller (if you have it already). Then, reboot your computer and try to install a newer driver that (hopefully) won't have the same issue.

How to boot Windows 11 into Safe Mode

System restore.

Another option in the Windows Recovery Environment is using System Restore, though keep in mind this requires you to have set up a system restore point while the computer was functional. For this:

1. Once in Automatic Repair, click Advanced options > Troubleshoot > Advanced options .

2. Click System Restore .

3. Click Next .

4. If any system restore points exist, select the latest one from a date where you know the computer was working as normal.

5. Click Next and then Finish to begin restoring your PC.

This should bring your computer back to a functional state, and you can avoid whatever may have caused it to stop booting.

Assign a drive letter

If you installed a new drive, there's a small chance that the boot drive for your Windows PC no longer as a drive letter assigned, which can stop it from booting. To fix this, you'll need to re-assign the drive letter to the drive, whichis relatively easy to do.

1. From Advanced Repair, click Advanced options > Troubleshoot > Advanced options .

2. Select Command Prompt .

3. Once the computer restarts and show the Command Prompt Window, enter this command:

4. Then, enter the following command to see the drives on your PC:

list volume

If you see a drive without a letter, you may need to assign one. Ignore drives that are only under 1GB in size, as there are system drives that shouldn't be touched.

5. To assign a letter, you'll first have to select the volume you want to take action on, such as volume 0. Use this command with the appropriate number

select volume 0

6. Assign a drive letter with this command:

assign letter=F

You can assign any letter that isn't already assigned, aside from A and B.

Once this is done, close Command Prompt and restart your computer, and it should be good to go.

Check for malware

Another option, albeit an unlikely one, is that you have some kind of malware preventing your computer from booting. If this is the case, you can use a rescue disk from an antivirus manufacturer to try and get your PC running again.

While many rescue disks may require you to pay, Kaspersky offers a free rescue disk download , which you can flash onto a USB drive using a program like Rufus.

Boot from the USB drive by using Automatic Repair and going to Advanced options > Troubleshoot > Advanced options , and then choosing Use a device . Follow the instructions to scan your device for malware and the problem should be solved.

Reset your PC

If what we've tried so far hasn't helped, you may just need to restore Windows to its factory settings. You can reset your PC easily from within Automatic Repair:

1. After your computer fails to boot and you get to AUtomatic Repair, click Advanced options > Troubleshoot .

2. Click Reset This PC .

3. Choose Keep my files if you don't want to lose the files currently on your PC. If you want to delete everything, choose Remove everything .

4. Choose Local reinstall for a faster process. If you have an internet connection and want to ensure you have a clean image, you can use the Cloud download option.

5. Click Reset and follow the process to set up your PC.

This is a more extreme solution, but it should be one of the most effective solutions.

Use a USB drive to reinstall Windows

If none of the solutions above work for you, your final option is to reinstall Windows. You can do this by creating a USB installation drive using another PC. You can use the Media Creation Tool for Windows 11 to format a USB drive you have to use as installation media. Simply head to Microsoft's website and click the Download now button under Create Windows 11 Installation Media and follow the instrucitons. It's a lengthy but fairly straightforward process.

How to download and install Windows 11

In order to boot from the USB drive, you have two options. The first option is using Automatic Repair as mentioned above. After going to Advanced Options > Troubleshoot > Advanced options , choose Use a device and select the USB drive you're using as installation media.

The second option, if you can't get into Automatic Repair, is to get into your computer's BIOS to choose a boot device. Getting into the BIOS depends on what machine you have, but typically, you can try pressing Esc , F2 , F11 , or F12 keys as soon as you turn on the computer. From there, just choose the USB drive you want to boot from, and follow the usual steps to install Windows 11 from scratch.

Get things back up and running

With all of these steps, you're bound to find a solution to ensure your PC is usable again. Of course, we're ruling out physical hardware problems, at which point you need to explore other options. But if the problem has to do with software, these solutions should be all you need to get your PC up and running.