If you need to change the drive letter of a disk, whether it is an internal HDD, SSD, flash drive, or another storage device, you can do this in several ways provided by Windows. In this guide, we will detail how to accomplish this task in Windows 11 and Windows 10 using built-in tools.
Changing the Drive Letter in Windows
Disk Management
The simplest way to change the drive letter of a disk or USB drive is to use the “Disk Management” utility. Follow these steps:
1) Open “Disk Management”. You can do this through the context menu of the Start button (right-click) or by pressing Win+R and entering diskmgmt.msc.
2) In the lower part of the window, find the desired partition. Right-click on it and select “Change Drive Letter and Paths”. For empty drives, select the drive name on the left.
3) In the dialog that appears, click “Change”.
4) Specify a new letter in the “Assign the following drive letter” field and click “OK”.
5) Confirm the change of the drive letter.
Important: Do not change the letter of the system drive C: or drives where applications are installed to avoid system issues.
Settings
You can also change the drive letter through Settings. To do this:
1) Open “Settings” using Win+I.
2) Navigate to System → Storage → Advanced storage settings → Disks and volumes.
3) Click “Properties” next to the disk you want to change.
4) Select “Change Drive Letter”.
5) Specify a new letter or select “None” to remove the letter. Confirm the changes.
Command Prompt and Windows PowerShell
For those who prefer a command-line interface, the drive letter can be changed via Command Prompt or Windows PowerShell:
1) Launch the Command Prompt as an administrator.
2) Enter the following commands in order (N — partition number, X — current letter, Z — new letter):
diskpart
list volume
select volume N
remove letter=X
assign letter=Z
exit
For PowerShell, the command is:
Get-Partition -DriveLetter CURRENT_LETTER | Set-Partition -NewDriveLetter NEW_LETTER
These methods are useful if the standard interface does not allow changing the drive letter.
Additional Information
A few nuances that may be helpful:
1) Drive letter assignments are stored by the OS, not on the drive itself. When connected to another computer, the letter may be different.
2) Letters A and B are reserved for floppy drives, and C is always used for the system partition.
3) Changing the letter is also possible via the registry in the section:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
However, this method requires caution and is not recommended. You could simply rename the parameter with the corresponding drive letter, but we do not recommend this approach.
4) Third-party partition management utilities also allow changing drive letters, but in most cases, Windows’ built-in tools are sufficient.
Using the methods listed above, you can easily change the drive letter of a disk or flash drive in Windows without resorting to third-party software.
