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How to use the diskpart utility to assign and remove drive letters.
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The Disk Management tool in Windows gives you an easy-to-use graphical interface to dealing with partitions and drive letters , but what if you want to just quickly change a drive letter on the command prompt? The diskpart utility makes it easy.
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
You'll want to note the volume number next to the drive that you want to change the letter of. In our case, that number is 3.
Now we'll use the select volume command to tell diskpart to make changes to that volume. If your drive number is different, you'll want to replace the 3 with the number in your configuration.
select volume 3
You should see a message that the volume is now selected.
At this point you can easily assign a new drive letter. Just type in this command, substituting R for the drive letter you'd like to use:
assign letter=R
Make sure to hit enter once you're done, of course.
Once you've made that change, your drive should show up again as a new device, and be available for browsing immediately.
If you want to unassign a drive letter in order to hide the drive, you can also use the remove letter command in the same way. We wouldn't necessarily advise doing this, of course.
Don't bother trying to change your C: drive, because that's not going to work.
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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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