Cannot change the letter or assign a drive letter to the D/E/F/G partition

If you can't change drive letter in Disk Management, stay here, and the tool will provide you with a complete guide on how to cope with this issue effectively. If you can't assign a drive letter in Disk Management, proceed with the alternative disk management software introduced on this page.

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Change Drive Letter in Disk Management

When you encounter Drive Letter Not Available, you can change drive letter with Disk Management to fix it. It allows you to change drive letter to any letter you want except the default C: for system partition/boot partition. In theory, any letter in D, E, F, G, H… can be used for other primary partitions or logical partitions.

Here's how to change, add, or assign a letter to the drive you need in Windows Disk Management. Note that you must be logged in as an administrator to perform these steps.

Step 1: Right-click "My Computer/This PC" and select "Manage" to open "Disk Management."

Step 2: Right-click the drive you want to change, and click Change Drive Letter and Paths.

Next, you can do any of the following:

(1) To assign a drive letter, click Add, click the letter you want to use, and then click OK. (2) To change the drive letter, click Change, click Assign the following drive letter, click the letter you want to use, and then click OK. (3) To remove a drive letter, click Remove, and then click Yes to confirm that you want to remove the letter.

Why can't I change drive letters on demand?

If you can't see the “Change Drive Letter and Paths” option in Disk Management, or the “Change Drive Letter and Paths is greyed out”, probably the target volume has no drive letter assigned to it, or it's an unallocated drive that needs initialization.

At this point, you can use the Disk Management tool to initialize the hard drive and create a new simple volume.

However, if you can change the drive letter of an existing hard disk (for example, from D to E) or assign a new, available drive letter to the newly created disk, continue reading to learn the reasons behind the issue and how to fix it:

• The target disk is in use and Windows prohibits any changes. Close any programs or windows and try again. • The disk is a system or boot partition. Windows does not allow modifications to it. • Another volume is using the drive letter you want, or the letter is already in use by some external storage media connected to your computer.

Normally, the assignment of drive letters in Windows goes like this. Click on the buttons below to share this article and let more people know the reason.

If all of the above is not your case (for example, the letter H is not used by any other internal or external drive, but it still cannot be assigned), you may try to resolve the issue with some other powerful partition manager.

How to Fix the Issue of Unable to Change Drive Letter and Path in Windows 11/10/8/7

Aside from the issue we mentioned about the Change Drive Letter option being grayed out in Disk Management, there are a few other similar errors that might prevent you from completing the task as expected. For example:

• Volume Manager reports "Invalid parameter"
• Missing drive letter in the list of available drive letters (drive letter is unavailable)

When you fail to change, add, or assign a drive letter to your local drive or external hard disk in Disk Management, you need an alternative tool to fix the error and proceed with the operation. A free partition manager works almost the same as Windows Disk Management in managing hard disks or removable/external hard drives, including changing drive letters and paths.

Step 1: Run Partition Assistant, right click the partition which you want to change drive letter, and then choose "Change Drive Letter".

Step 2: In the new window, click on the drop-down arrow and select an available drive letter for the partition from the menu, then click 'OK'.

Step 3. Click the «Run 1 Task» button in the top-left corner to check the changes, and then click «Apply» to assign the drive letter to the selected partition.

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Conclusions

Changing the drive letter of D, E, F, G drive or external drive is a very basic function in Disk Management on Windows 11/10/8/7. However, this tiny modification sometimes disappoints us, and we fail to change the drive letter there.

The reasons might be complicated, but it's fairly easy to solve the problem of unable to change drive letter or assign a new one with a comprehensive disk and partition manager – Partition Master. Actually, it can substitute 100% functions of Disk Management, plus offering many practical features that you can't enjoy in default programs. For example, copy partition, merge partition, migrate OS to SSD/HDD, check partition errors, etc. Download the free partition manager and explore more by yourself.