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 from command prompt

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

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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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assign drive letter from command prompt

How to Format a Hard Drive Using the Command Prompt

Formatting one of the best hard drive s or SSDs is the same as buying a new hard drive since the process erases all the data in one fell swoop. When you format your hard drive, you can clean internal as well as external storage media.

In this tutorial, we explain how you can format a hard drive using the command prompt. Before proceeding further, make sure you backup all available data to prevent data loss. Follow the steps below to format a drive:

STEP 1:    Open Command Prompt As Administrator

Search for command prompt, right click and run as Administrator.

STEP 2:    Use Diskpart

Once command line is open, type ' diskpart ' and press Enter.

STEP 3:    Type List Disk

The above command will open a Diskpart window. In this window, type ' list disk ' and press Enter. It will list all the available drives.

STEP 4:    Select the Drive to Format

Now type ' select disk (disk number) ' as shown above. Specify the drive number which needs to be formatted.

STEP 5:    Clean the Disk

In this step, type ' clean '. This command will permanent delete all files and folders, and successfully clean up the disk.

STEP 6:    Create Partition Primary

To make the drive again accessible, type ' create partition primary '.

STEP 7:    Format the Drive

Now format the drive with FAT or NTFS file system. Type ' format fs=ntfs ' and press Enter.

STEP 8:    Assign a Drive Letter

To assign a drive letter, you can type ' assign ' as shown below.

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  • ehmkec Am I missing something? Couldn't you just bring up a command prompt and type "format e:" - or some other drive letter? Reply
  • tcaster6263 would be kind of short for a tutorial don't you think? Reply
  • polomint Or use Computer Management -> Disk Management if you want to remove all partitions on a drive then format it... Reply
21240634 said: Am I missing something? Couldn't you just bring up a command prompt and type "format e:" - or some other drive letter?
21240861 said: 21240634 said: Am I missing something? Couldn't you just bring up a command prompt and type "format e:" - or some other drive letter?
21240932 said: 21240861 said: 21240634 said: Am I missing something? Couldn't you just bring up a command prompt and type "format e:" - or some other drive letter?
  • USAFRet Wh y you need to do this dictates how you do this. Reply
  • jpe1701 I agree with USAFRET. I've had disk management just not let me format a drive and I had to use diskpart to get it done. Heck I've even used Ubuntu on a bootable drive to do disk management many years ago just because I knew the Linux commands and not the windows. Reply
  • stdragon It's useful when installing Windows 10 on a used drive. But it's not a secure erase. So long as you know that, then proceed. Reply
  • View All 21 Comments

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  • How To Assign Letter To Drive In CMD

I n this tutorial, we are going to see how to assign a drive letter in CMD. To assign a letter to a drive such as an external hard drive or a USB flash drive, there is a tool called Diskpart that makes drive letter assignment faster.

In order to assign a drive letter, we will use Diskpart command prompt which also allows you to create a partition, delete a partition, and format a partition, etc. Well, how to assign a drive letter with Diskpart?  

How To Assign Letter To A Drive In CMD

assign drive letter from command prompt

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MiniTool

How to Change Drive Letter with CMD Windows 10

Diskpart is a command-line tool in Windows system that allows you to manage your disks and partitions. This post introduces how to change drive letter with CMD in Windows 10, namely, by using Diskpart CMD tool. MiniTool software provides users a free disk partition manager, data recovery software, system backup and restore software, etc.

If you want, you can change drive letter for a drive with CMD (Command Prompt) in Windows 10. This post includes detailed guides for how to use Diskpart command-line tool to change driver letter in CMD.

How to Change Drive Letter with CMD in Windows 10

Diskpart is a Windows built-in CMD tool that lets you easily manage hard drive and change drive letter. To change or assign drive letter in CMD, you can firstly open Diskpart utility in Command Prompt. Check the steps below.

Step 1. Open CMD in Windows 10

You can press Windows + R , type cmd , and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open elevated Command Prompt .

Step 2. Open Diskpart tool

In Command Prompt window, you can type diskpart command, and press Enter . This will open the Diskpart command-line utility.

Step 3. Change drive letter CMD

Next you can type the command line below to change drive letter in Command Prompt in Windows 10. Remember to press Enter after typing each command line.

  • list volume (this command will list all available volumes detected by your computer)
  • select volume * (replace “*” with the exact volume number of the target partition)
  • assign letter=* (replace “*” with the preferred drive letter like “F”)

Windows change drive letter

After you change or assign a drive letter for a drive or device, Windows will display the same letter automatically next time you reconnect the device to your computer.

If you want to remove the drive letter of a specific drive, you can type remove letter=* command and press Enter . Still, replace “*” with the exact drive letter of the target drive.

How to Change Drive Letter Using PowerShell

Some Windows 10 users might find that Command Prompt is missing from Win + X menu , and instead, it shows Windows PowerShell. Windows PowerShell can do most things that Command Prompt does. Alternatively, you can also use Windows PowerShell to change drive letter in Windows 10.

Step 1. Press Windows + X , and choose Windows PowerShell (Admin) to run Windows PowerShell utility as administrator.

Step 2. Next type get-disk command and press Enter to list all available drives the computer detected.

Step 3. Then you can type the command: Get-Partition -DiskNumber 1 | Set-Partition -NewDriveLetter F , and press Enter to assign a new drive letter. You should change “*” with the actual disk number of target drive, and replace “F” with the new drive letter you’d like to assign to the drive.

change drive letter PowerShell

MiniTool Partition Wizard – Professional Free Disk Partition Manager

Instead of using CMD or PowerShell to change drive letter for a drive in Windows 10, you can also utilize third-party free disk partition manager like MiniTool Partition Wizard to easily change drive letter and manage disk partitions on Windows 10.

MiniTool Partition Wizard let you easily create/delete/extend/resize/format/wipe partitions, convert partitions formats, migrate OS, clone disk, test hard drive speed , analyze hard drive space usage, check and fix disk errors , and more.

change drive letter with MiniTool Partition Wizard

By following the detailed guides above, you can easily change drive letter with CMD (Command Prompt), PowerShell or MiniTool Partitioon Wizard on Windows 10.

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  • DiskPart Command Line Utility

[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.

assign drive letter from command prompt

Why use Diskpart assign 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.

│ Use Diskpart to assign drive letter

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. 

│ Assign drive letter via Disk Management

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.

change drive letter and path

Step 3.  Click  Change  to summon the next window.

change

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 .

assign new letter

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.

Assign Drive Letter

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

Choose New Drive Letter

Step 3. Click Apply to submit the task.

Apply Assign Drive Letter

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.

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How to change a drive letter on windows 10 or windows 11.

You can change your drive letters in Windows 10 and 11 using the Disk Management utility.

Quick Links

What changing a drive letter does, how to change a drive letter, how to fix programs broken by changing a drive letter.

Changing the letter of a drive is easy on Windows 10 and Windows 11, but you should do it as soon as you add the drive to prevent future hassles. Find out how to change a drive letter here.

Windows assigns drive letters alphabetically --- starting with C --- when they're initialized. If you want to change a drive letter, you should do it before you install anything on the drive. Changing a drive letter after programs are installed could break them since there will be references to an installation location that is no longer there.

Windows has gotten pretty smart about updating shortcuts so that programs work after changing a drive letter. Most of your applications' shortcuts will probably be automatically corrected. Unfortunately, Windows isn't as good about updating file associations. You'll have to manually set the default apps associated with files to fix file associations if they were broken by changing the drive letter.

It is possible to change the boot drive letter to something else, but we don't recommend it. Changing C:\ to another letter is likely to result in severe issues, like a PC that cannot boot into Windows at all. Even if it were able to boot, there would be a huge number of programs that would not be able to run.

Technically speaking, while they are commonly called drive letters, each letter actually refers to a partition on a disk. If you have multiple partitions on a single disk, you will need to assign a letter to each partition to make them all accessible. If a disk has just a single partition, it will just have a single letter pointing to that partition. (However, you do not have to assign a letter to each partition. Partitions without drive letters will not appear in File Explorer and elsewhere.)

Changing a drive letter is pretty simple. Click the Start button, type "Disk Management" in the search bar, and then hit Enter.

The program name displayed in the search will not be Disk Management. 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."

Identify the drive you'd like to change in the Disk Management Window. In this example, we'll change the letter of the D:\ drive to J:\. You can right-click the drive on the text list, or on the menu below. Either works.

Select "Change Drive Letter and Paths" in the right-click menu that appears.

In the window that pops up, click "Change."

Select whatever letter you want from the drop-down menu. Then click "Ok."

Two popups will warn you about changing your drive letter. Click "Yes" on both of them, and then restart your computer.

Once Windows has restarted, the drive letter should be changed.

There are a few ways you can fix a program broken by changing the drive letter.

Fix The Shortcut

If you're lucky, the only thing that is broken is the shortcut. Fix a shortcut by right-clicking the shortcut on your desktop, and then click Properties.

You need to change the target of the shortcut to the new drive letter.

For example, if GIMP was previously installed at " D :\GIMP 2\bin\gimp-2.10.exe," and you changed the D drive to J, change the target of the shortcut to " J :\GIMP 2\bin\gimp-2.10.exe."

Finalize the change by clicking "Apply" and then "Ok."

Reinstall the Program

Reinstalling the program will generate new entries in the registry, so everything on the computer will know where to look for the program. Some installers won't like reinstalling directly over existing files, so you may need to rename or delete the old installation first.

Change the Drive Letter Back

If you changed the drive letter of a drive with a lot of programs installed, it might be easier to change the drive letter back. Changing the drive letter back should automatically fix any programs and file associations that were broken.

Edit the Registry

You can break programs, or even Windows itself, by editing the registry. Be careful, and learn about how to edit the registry before you try it. Make sure you backup the Windows registry first. You should not attempt this method unless you have no other options.

Windows, and a lot of programs, track where programs are installed via the Windows registry. It is possible to manually adjust the registry to fix broken programs. Keep in mind that there could be dozens of registry entries you need to edit. A program like GIMP can have registry entries for the context menu, for the "Open With" menu, for any file associations, and for the location of its executables. Other programs may only have a few entries related to where it is installed.

If you're not deterred, here's how you do it.

First, you need to know where the program was previously installed. In this case, the program was installed to the "D:\GIMP 2" folder, and the executables were found the "D:\GIMP 2\bin" sub-folder. It is now located at "J:\GIMP 2" instead.

We need to update the registry to reflect the change in location. Click the Start button, type "regedit" into the search bar, right-click Regedit, and click "Run as administrator."

In Regedit, hit Ctrl+F to bring up a search window. Type in the old location for the program you're trying to fix --- "D:\GIMP 2" for our example --- then click "Find Next."

Once Regedit has found something with "D:\GIMP 2" as part of a path, it'll show it to you. Here is an example from the GIMP search.

To actually change them, double click the name of the registry entry you want to modify. Then change the drive letter to J, or whatever you chose. If you didn't otherwise move the folder, leave the rest of the path alone. Then click "Ok."

You'll need to repeat this multiple times. To find the next result using your search term, you can hit the F3 key. There will be a popup once you've found all of the entries.

Changing drive letters can be a simple way to customize your PC. Do it before you install anything on the drive, however. You'll prevent any problems before they occur, and probably save yourself quite a bit of troubleshooting.

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assign drive letter from command prompt

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.

Windows-10-x64-Original-2016-09-05-14-24-29

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 .

cp001

When Command Prompt pops up, run the diskpart command.

run_dpt

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

list_vol

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.

asn_let

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

rem_let

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 .

exit

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assign drive letter from command prompt

How to Remove and Assign Drive Letters in Windows with Diskpart

Vamsi Krishna

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)."

diskpart-launch-cmd-as-admin

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

diskpart-cmd-diskpart

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.

diskpart-list-volume

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.

diskpart-select-volume

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.

diskpart-assign-letter

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.

diskpart-drive-letter-changed

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.

diskpart-remove-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.

diskpart-letter-removed

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.

Vamsi Krishna

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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How to assign a drive a letter using Diskpart

Industries top insights, delivered to your inbox.

Introduction:

Windows volume drive letters can be altered from the command line using Diskpart.

Requirements:

Access to the Windows command line.

From your taskbar, start a search for

Enter the command:

Example output:

but replace “2” with the desired volume number. Enter the command:

but replace the “q” with any desired letter that is not already being used by another volume.

More Information:

within  diskpart  for more information.

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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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command prompt question-assign letter to a disk

Report abuse, replies (6) .

Hi lizzie299,

Welcome to Microsoft Answers!

I would suggest you to run the command prompt as an administrator and then execute the commands.

You can refer the below mentioned link.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc757491(WS.10).aspx

To change, add, or remove a drive letter

1.       Open Computer Management by clicking the Start button, clicking Control Panel , clicking System and Security , clicking Administrative Tools , and then double-clicking Computer Management . If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

2.       In the left pane, click Disk Management .

3.       Right-click the drive that you want to change, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths .

4.       Do one of the following:

·          To assign a drive letter if one has not already been assigned, click Add , click the letter that you want to use, and then click OK .

·          To change a drive letter, click Change , click Assign the following drive letter , click the letter that you want to use, and then click OK .

·          To remove a drive letter, click Remove , and then click Yes to confirm that you want to remove it.

For further information, visit the below mentioned links:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Change-add-or-remove-a-drive-letter

 Hope this information helped!

  Thanks and regards

  Fouzan – Microsoft support

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Click the Start button . In the Search box, type Command Prompt, and then, in the list of results, double-click Command Prompt. Type: diskpart Then type: list disk That will give you a list of all your drives with their drive numbers (not letters). Find the drive number for the drive you want to assign a letter to. Then type: select disk={number} (no brackets, just the number assigned to your IDE drive) Then type: assign letter={letter} (no brackets, just the letter you want to assign to the IDE drive - be sure it is not used by another device such as a CD drive) The response to all this was: "you did not specify a volume.  you need to specify a volume. But diskpart cannot see any volumes on it. I tried the list volumes command and the response was: "0 volumes".

3 people found this reply helpful

1 person found this reply helpful

if you're still checking, I had to reassign while attempting to do a system recovery and my USB drive which has the backup file was being assigned C: by default and the recovery wanted to make the unformatted system disk C:.  I have to change the drive letter of the USB.  Long story long:

list volume

select disk = #

select volume = #

assign letter = {x}

hope this helps

29 people found this reply helpful

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Assign Drive Letters to Folders

subst virtual drives folders

Did you know that it is possible to assign drive letters to folders so that you can access those folders as if they were hard drive partitions?

This makes it not only easier to access those folders on the system, as you do not need to navigate to them first in Windows Explorer, but also makes running programs easier especially from the command line as you do not have to enter the full path to the folder but the abbreviated one instead. In addition, it may speed up load and save operations on Windows systems.

It is very easy to assign a drive letter to a folder, to do that, do the following:

  • Click Start, select run and enter cmd. You can alternatively bring up the run box with Ctrl-r, typing cmd and hitting enter.
  • This should open the command line interface of your windows operating system.
  • The command that we need is the "subst" command and we use it the following way: subst drive folder . Make sure you don't add a trailing slash to the folder as the path may not be found otherwise by the command.
  • Lets say you want to assign the drive letter X to the folder d:\movies on your hard drive. To do that you write the following command: subst x: d:\movies

That is all. Fairly easy isn't it? Now the drive letter x: remains accessible as long as you do not turn off or reboot windows.

subst virtual drives folders

If you want to make this permanent you will have to do the following:

  • Create a new file and name it drive.bat. Edit the file and add the line subst x: d:\movies to it and save it.
  • Right click the Start button, select Open All Users.
  • Open Programs, Startup and right click that location.
  • Select New Shortcut, and select the drive.bat file that you created.
  • Select Next and finish.
  • The command will be executed for all users during every startup of windows so that the folders can be accessed using the selected drive letter.
  • If you are running Windows 95 you can edit the autoexec.bat and add the line there.

Update : If you do not like to work with the command line or bat files, you could head over to NTwind to download Visual Subst instead, which is a gui version of the program.

visual subst

To use the program simply select a drive letter in its interface and pick a folder from a hard drive to link the two together.

Assign Drive Letters to Folders

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The command works in Window 7 but cannot get the Batch file to run at start up.

very nice :)

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assign drive letter from command prompt

IMAGES

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

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  2. How to Change Drive Letter in Windows 10?

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  3. How to Change/Rename/Assign Drive Letter in CMD Windows 10/7

    assign drive letter from command prompt

  4. Change Drive Letter Using Command Prompt In Windows 10/8/7 [Tutorial]

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  5. 3 Simple Ways to Assign a Drive Letter in Windows 10/8/7

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

    assign drive letter from command prompt

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  1. find the letter and type a command

  2. command your letter 🤗🤗🤗

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

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

  5. How to Fix "Drive Where Windows Is Installed Is Locked" (UEFI or GPT Mode)

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

COMMENTS

  1. Manually assigning a drive letter using CMD/Diskpart

    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>".

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

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

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

    Open Start. 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...

  4. How to Format a Hard Drive Using the Command Prompt

    STEP 1: Open Command Prompt As Administrator Opening the command prompt. Search for command prompt, right click and run as Administrator. STEP 2: Use Diskpart Using diskpart Once...

  5. How To Assign Letter To Drive In CMD

    How To Assign Letter To A Drive In CMD Step 1: There are two ways to open the command line. Click on the Start menu, type CMD in the search box, then right-click on it and select Run as administrator. Or press WIN + R, type CMD, and press Enter. Type diskpart in CMD to start it. Step 2: Type list volume and press Enter.

  6. How to Change Drive Letter with CMD Windows 10

    You can press Windows + R, type cmd, and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open elevated Command Prompt. Step 2. Open Diskpart tool In Command Prompt window, you can type diskpart command, and press Enter. This will open the Diskpart command-line utility. Step 3. Change drive letter CMD

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

    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.

  8. diskpart

    To start the diskpart command interpreter, at the command prompt type: diskpart <parameter> Important. You must be in your local Administrators group, or a group with similar permissions, ... assign: Assigns a drive letter or mount point to the volume with focus. attach vdisk: Attaches (sometimes called mounts or surfaces) a virtual hard disk ...

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

    Changing a drive letter is pretty simple. Click the Start button, type "Disk Management" in the search bar, and then hit Enter. The program name displayed in the search will not be Disk Management. 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."

  10. assign

    Download PDF Learn Windows Server assign Article 02/03/2023 10 contributors Feedback In this article Syntax Examples Related links Applies to: Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012 Assigns a drive letter or mount point to the volume with focus.

  11. Assign, change or remove Drive Letter with Diskpart › Knowledge Base

    You want to change it to First we need to open Command Prompt with Administrator Rights. 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, or click on Start with right click and choose Command Prompt (Admin) on. When Command Prompt pops up, run ...

  12. Assign a mount point folder path to a drive.

    Go to Action > All Tasks > Change Drive Letter and Paths, then choose Add. Select Mount in the following empty NTFS folder option. Select the Browse button to locate the folder. After you select the folder, choose select OK. Select OK in the Change Drive Letter and Paths dialog box to finish. Mount a drive as a folder with the command line

  13. 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)

  14. How to Remove and Assign Drive Letters in Windows with Diskpart

    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 ...

  15. How to assign a drive a letter using Diskpart

    How to assign a drive a letter using Diskpart Introduction: Windows volume drive letters can be altered from the command line using Diskpart. Requirements: Access to the Windows command line. Procedure: From your taskbar, start a search for cmd Enter the command: diskpart Enter the command: list volume Example output: DISKPART> list vol

  16. Diskpart

    22 2.6K views 1 year ago More on the blog: https://bit.ly/31NoF4G Assign drive letters in the command line with Diskpart. Start a command prompt and type "diskpart". Then you can use...

  17. Change a drive letter

    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. Tip. If you don't see the Change Drive Letter and Paths option or it's grayed ...

  18. How to change Drive letter in Windows 11/10

    Run Command Prompt as an administrator. command and hit the enter key. command to see the list of all hard drives including their volume numbers and letters. command. Replace 5 with any other ...

  19. How to change drive letter from command prompt or powershell in windows

    So in your particular case (changing from D to E), you can use the following. Get-Partition -DriveLetter D | Set-Partition -NewDriveLetter E. Note also that you will need Admin Rights. So run PowerShell as Admin. Share. Follow. answered Sep 23, 2015 at 23:43. nehcsivart. 734 7 12.

  20. 3 Simple Ways to Assign a Drive Letter in Windows 10/8/7

    Step 2. In the Disk Management window, right-click the volume you want to change or add a drive letter. Then click "Change Drive Letter and Paths". Step 3. Pick "Change" to alter the drive letter. Or pick "Add" to add a drive letter for drives without one. Step 4.

  21. Change drive letters via the command prompt in Windows 11, 10,

    The quick change of drive letters under Windows 11, 10, ... etc.! 1. Start the diskpart in administrator mode Ctrl + Shift + Enter. 2. Command: and list volume. (lists all available volumes) 3rd command: select volume 4. (replace 6 with the exact volume number of the target partition) 4th command: assign letter=A.

  22. command prompt question-assign letter to a disk

    Find the drive number for the drive you want to assign a letter to. Then type: select disk= {number} (no brackets, just the number assigned to your IDE drive) Then type: assign letter= {letter} (no brackets, just the letter you want to assign to the IDE drive - be sure it is not used by another device such as a CD drive) This thread is locked.

  23. Assign Drive Letters to Folders

    It is very easy to assign a drive letter to a folder, to do that, do the following: Click Start, select run and enter cmd. You can alternatively bring up the run box with Ctrl-r, typing cmd and hitting enter. This should open the command line interface of your windows operating system. The command that we need is the "subst" command and we use ...