Vista and XP: Reassign/Change Drive Letters

Contributor Icon Contributed by MickeyMouse Date Icon July 11, 2004  
Tag Icon Tagged: Windows

Explains how to switch drive letters in a XP or Vista system.


When one adds a new hard drive, partition, or CD-ROM, the natural order of the drives may be changed. This will walk you through changing the drive letters to whatever you want.

    1. Open the Control Panel
    2. Select Classic View (if not already setup that way)
    3. Click Administrative Tools Folder
    4. Double-click the Computer Management icon
    5. Computer Management window will open. Click storage in the left page.
    6. Double-click Disk Management
    7. Right-click the drive you want to change
    8. Select Change Drive Letter and Paths
    9. Click the Change Button
    10. Select the drive letter to which you want to assign it
    11. Note the warning and agree if you accept the risks
    12. Close out the disk management

vista_change_drive_letter

Switching drive letters need an extra step. As two drives cannot be assigned to the same letter, you many need to temporarily change one of the drives to something random.

For example, after installing a new storage hard drive, my system had my main drive as C, CD-ROM as D, and storage drive as E. I switch my CD-ROM to X for a second, switch my storage drive to D, and then assign my CD-ROM to E. The switch is completed.

Warnings:

    1. You should not change drives containing system information or installed programs.
    2. You should not change your CD-ROM drive if an installed program looks for a “run disk” in order to run
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  • flowerbot
    Thanks - you saved my bacon. I had a USB mass storage device that wasn't showing in Explorer. Didn't realise I had to format & register it here first ... (assumed it had arrived already formatted).
  • Anonymous
    Thanks!!!
    That is exactly what I needed after I partitioned.
  • Anonymous
    THANNK YOU!

    my dvd rom drive & cdrw were in the wrong letter order
  • geschman
    In the installation of a NEW primary hard drive, somehow it was assigned 'E' instead of 'C'.

    Using the procedure to reassign it to 'C' does not work.

    The procedure does NOT allow reassigning the boot drive letter.

    Anyone have any ideas?
  • Anonymous
    Forgot exactly where I googled this from, but it worked for me in the same circumstances:

    This procedure swaps drive letters for drives C and D. If you do not need to swap drive letters, simply name the DosDeviceletter: value to any new drive letter not in use.
    1. Make a full system backup of the computer and system state.

    2. Log on as an Administrator.

    3. Start Regedt32.exe.

    4. Go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMMountedDevices key.

    5. Click MountedDevices. On the Security menu, click Permissions. Check to make sure Administrators have full control. Change this back when you are finished with these steps.

    6. Quit Regedt32 and start Regedit.exe Go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMMountedDevices key.

    7. Find the drive letter you want to change to (new). Look for "DosDevicesC:".

    8. Right-click DosDevicesC:, and then click Rename.

    9. Rename it to an unused drive letter "DosDevicesZ:". (This will free up drive letter C: to be used later.)

    10. Find the drive letter you want changed. Look for "DosDevicesD:".

    11. Right-click DosDevicesD:, and then click Rename.

    12. Rename it to the appropriate (new) drive letter "DosDevicesC:".

    13. Click the value for DosDevicesZ:, click Rename, and name it back to "DosDevicesD:".

    14. Quit Regedit and start Regedt32.

    15. Change the permissions back to the previous setting for Administrators (this should probably be Read Only).

    16. Restart the computer.
  • JustAGuy
    That information was just what I needed. once again thank you
  • Anonymous
    This link was on the top of the Google page, and it really deserves it. Thank you very much. I found what I needed very fast.
  • Jim
    i have an XP machine. it has had an external hard drive connected that has all my music loaded on. it has worked fine for a few years. music is set up through media player, i have also built playlists, etc. in My Computer, this external has always been "L drive". all of the sudden it doesnt show up in my computer, i cant access music in media player- no paths. i tried plugging it into other USB ports with still no recognizing of the drive. i have plugged mp3 players into these USB ports, and they do get recognized. i plugged a different external hard drive into the USB ports, and it doesnt show up either. does my computer now have a prob with external hard drives? very strange- HELP
  • Lee
    I want to switch the drive letter between E and F. Referring to your instruction, I changed the drive E to X successfully. However, I can't find out the E in the drop down list when I tried to change the drive F to E. I also tried to reboot the company and do it again. However, I'm still unable to get letter of E in the drop down list. What should I do in this situation?
  • david
    Thank you SOOOOOOOO much!!!!! you wouldn't believe how much this has helped me!!! you guys are the best :)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • chicka
    Hi
    My cd rom drive won't allow a right click
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