How to change drive letter. How to change the letter using standard Windows tools How to change the local drive letter
Change hard drive letter in Windows XP for a knowledgeable person it will not be difficult, so I am writing for those who do not yet know.
In my troubleshooting activities for computers, I often encountered a problem when employees insert a flash drive into the USB connector of the system unit, and it is not assigned a letter. More precisely, a letter is assigned to the flash drive, but a network drive is already associated with this letter (for example, F: \), as a result, the flash drive does not appear in Windows XP Explorer. You have to change the drive letter assigned to the flash drive to an unoccupied one. This can be done in two ways.
The first way to change the hard drive letter
Thus, you can change the letters of all drives, except for the one on which Windows is installed. This is usually the C:\ drive. But there is a way that allows you to change the letter of the system drive.
The second way to change the drive letter
This can be done in the Windows system registry. Without special need for poorly versed people to do this Not recommended, as this may cause a malfunction of the computer and loss of information on the .
Before any changes in the registry, it is recommended to make a copy of it (in the registry editor: File -> Export) and a backup copy of the system state and data on the computer.
In this article I will describe step by step how to change drive letter in windows xp, windows 7, windows 8. This does not require any additional utilities and programs, everything is done by standard Windows tools. In this example, I will change the drive letter from "G" to "D" (the drive can be renamed to any free letter).
Attention: You cannot change the drive letter where the Windows operating system is installed. It is usually installed on the drive letter "C".
On the label My Computer/ Computer/ This Computer (depending on the installed operating system Windows XP/Windows 7/Windows 8) right-click and select " Control". The "Computer Management" window will open. If for some reason this method does not work, the "Computer Management" window can be opened in another way, click "Start" - "Control Panel" - "Administrative Tools" - "Computer Management" (in the version Windows 8, you need to right-click in the lower left corner and select "Control Panel" - "Administrative Tools" - "Computer Management", in the Windows 8.1 version, right-click on the "Start" button and select "Control Panel" - "Administrative Tools" - "Computer Management").
In the "Computer Management" window, click "Disk Management", select the drive you want to change the name of, right-click on it and select "Change drive letter or drive path..."
In the window that opens, select the disk and click the "Change" button.
Select an available drive letter.
After that, you will see another message stating that when changing the letter, some applications will not be available, click "Yes".
In Windows operating systems, logical drives are assigned Latin letters. Usually disks are numbered in order C, D, E, etc. But, in some cases, the numbering order is confused, which can create inconvenience for users.
If you are faced with such a situation, we suggest that you familiarize yourself with this material. Here you will learn how to change the drive letter in Windows 10.
In order to change the drive letter in Windows 10, you will need the standard program "". This program is built into Windows 10 so you don't have to install anything. To start it, you just need to right-click on the "Start" button (or press the key combination Windows-X) and select "Disk Management" in the menu that opens.
You can also open Disk Management with the "diskmgmt.msc" command. To do this, press the key combination Windows-R, enter the command "diskmgmt.msc" and press the enter key.
One way or another, the "Disk Management" window should appear in front of you. In this window, you will see all the drives that are connected to your computer.
In order to change the drive letter, right-click on it and select "Change drive letter or drive path" from the menu that opens.
As a result, a small window for changing the drive letter will appear. Here you need to click on the "Edit" button.
Please note that if the letter you need is not in the list, this means that this letter is occupied by another drive. You can change the drive letter for this drive to free up that drive letter. Also, the letter you need can be occupied by a flash drive or an external hard drive. To release such a letter, simply disable the drive that uses it.
In folder My computer you can see your logical drives, each of which is tied to a specific letter of the Latin alphabet. Historically, the letter C assigned to the system drive on which the Windows operating system is installed. The remaining letters are distributed alphabetically. Each user quickly gets used to their arrangement of letters, however, there are situations when a letter needs to be changed: for example, you just want to change D on the X or it is necessary for the program to work, in which the path to some disk is hard-coded. There are also cases when you do not need to change the letter, but assign it yourself for an external drive, if Windows cannot do this automatically.
Your computer can use up to 26 drive letters, from A before Z. Letters C – Z used for hard drives. Letters A and B reserved for floppy disk drives. However, if your computer does not have a floppy disk drive, these letters can be assigned to removable media.
The utility is responsible for assigning, changing and deleting a letter. Disk Management. You can open it in the following ways:
1. Click right click on button Start and in the menu that opens, select "Disk Management"
2. Open Start - Run and type diskmgmt.msc
3. Open Start and enter in the search bar diskmgmt.msc. In Windows 8, you can also use the search function in the Metro interface to launch the utility.
Utility window Disk Management
Change drive letter
In the Disk Management utility, select the drive you need and right-click on it. From the context menu, select Change Drive Letter or Drive Path.
The settings window for the selected drive will open. Click on the button Change.
In the next dialogue, in paragraph Assign letter in the drop-down list, select the letter that suits us.
Actually, that's all! However, it should be borne in mind that it is best to change the letter on a blank disk so as not to disrupt the operation of already installed programs.
Changing the drive letter is a procedure performed to run a program in which absolute paths are set in initialization files, or to arrange hard drive partitions in a certain way. Therefore, you need to know how to change the drive letter in Windows 10.
Renaming a section
The letter C is used to name the system partition (this has been the case since the very advent of Windows). The remaining sections are named in alphabetical order from D to Z.
Healthy! The letters A and B are used to name floppy drives. If these devices are not present on the PC, use these letters as well.
To change a letter, follow these steps.
- Start Menu → Control Panel → Administrative Tools → Computer Management → Disk Management.
An alternative way to run the utility is in the Run window, enter the command: diskmgmt.msc. - Select the desired partition → RMB → Change drive letter or drive path... → Change.
- Set the switch to "Assign a drive letter (A-Z)" → select the desired letter in the drop-down list → confirm the actions after the warning appears.
Important! If you rename the partition where the programs are installed, most likely they will not be able to start.
In the case of a flash drive, repeat the same steps as when renaming the hard drive partitions.
Video
The video will allow you to visually see how to change the drive letter.
Letter assignment
You need to assign a drive letter if for some reason it “flew off”, as a result of which this partition of the hard drive ceased to be displayed when entering My Computer.
How to hide a section
- Launch Registry Editor: In the Run window, type command → regedit.
- Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE → Software → Microsoft → Windows → CurrentVersion → Policies.
- Menu Edit → New → a section called "Explorer".
- In the "Explorer" setting, create a "DWORD (32-bit) Value" named "NoDrives".
- Open "NoDrives" → set the switch to "Decimal" and set the value corresponding to the letter of the section you want to hide.
You can find out the numerical value corresponding to each disk in the table:A 1 I 256 Q 65536 Y 16777216 B 2 J 512 R 131072 Z 33554432 C 4 K 1024 S 262144 hide
all sections67108863 D 8 L 2048 T 524288 display
all sections0 E 16 M 4096 U 1048576 F 32 N 8192 V 2097152 G 64 O 16384 W 4194304 H 128 P 32768 X 8388608 Healthy! To hide multiple sections (two or more), specify the sum of their numeric values in the field.
- Restart your computer.
Conclusion
When renaming hard drive partitions, programs installed on them may stop working. Therefore, you should only perform such actions as a last resort or if the applications require it. The renaming algorithm for HDD, SSD (you can read about how to configure Windows 10 to work on an SSD in the article “Optimizing Windows 10 settings for an SSD drive”) and a removable flash drive is the same.
