Change the drive letter in Windows

Partitions on a hard drive are given a letter as their identifier, and when you create a new one, you can choose which letter to assign to them. But what if you want to change the drive letter later? It’s not as simple as renaming a disk partition, but it is possible, with one exception. Here’s how to change the drive letter in Windows.

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What you need to know before changing the drive letter

A drive letter acts as a core identifier for a partition or a drive, allowing the system to map its location and in turn allow other programs and users to access it. Changing a drive letter isn’t too complicated, but there are some things to keep in mind first.

First, Windows only reserves this functionality for administrator accounts, so you must be signed in to an account. Second, there are some restrictions on how to change drive letters. The letters A and B cannot be used for the usual disk partitions, because Windows only saves them for floppy drives. You also cannot change the drive letters for system drives, such as C.

We also recommend that you do not change the drive letters for a partition if it has apps installed on it. This can cause path conflicts and your programs may not open. You can reinstall the apps to fix this problem, but it is better not to change the drive letter for such partitions.

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Change the drive letter in Windows

You must use the disk management tool built into Windows to change the drive letter. Open it by searching for Disk Management. The search result will be tagged Creating and formatting hard drive partitions† Click It.

Right click on the partition whose drive letter you want to change. You can right-click the partition from the list view at the top or the grid view in the middle.

Click Change drive letter and paths… A new dialog box will open.

Select the partition for which you want to change the letter. Click on the Change knob.

Click the drop-down list with the current drive letter, next to Assign the following drive letter:† Select the letter you want to assign from the drop-down list by clicking on it.

Click on the Okay knob. A dialog box appears.

Click on the And it is button to confirm the change. The drive letter changes and appears in the disk management view.