Comments on: How to change the drive letter in Windows XP for an external USB stick or hard drive

By: Marc

Marc — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 13:54:10 +0000

Thank you for saving me hours of time with these directions.

By: Poo

Poo — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 18:54:54 +0000

Thanks for this simple but very useful info about Windows XP.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 18:13:38 +0000

Sounds like good advice, I will try it.

By: Berton

Berton — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 23:19:16 +0000

I wonder if it’s the security feature that is blocking the drive letter change. Many times things that are secured put a ‘pointer’ on the computer and changes can’t be made or the path to the information secured is lost. Something I’d try is unsecuring the Thumb/Flash drive, assign a letter then re-secure it.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 20:10:11 +0000

Doesn’t work for me, I have a secured flash drive(need password to login), I changed the drive letter and it keeps trying and retrying but could not get to the newly assigned, eventually I have to switch back to original, which shares with another network drive, I have to reboot the computer if I want to see what’s on my flash drive.

By: Mik

Mik — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 17:33:45 +0000

when i plug my external hard drive it’s not showing up so i did the whole computer management thing but my external hard drive doesn’t show up it only shows my drive c: so no matter what i do i can’t change the letter for my drive.

this problem happened when i reformat my computer including my external hard drive to ntfs after i reformat my computer i plugged in my external hard drive then the computer cannot read it anymore, i did everything i even update my drivers, change my usb cable but nothing’s working, i even plug it to other computers but the same thing happen it can’t be read.

please help me. i’ve been looking for solutions but still can’t fix the problem.

please…

By: Tony Hays

Tony Hays — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:31:47 +0000

Thanks for the info on changing drive letter assignments. I have two external USB drives and my computer has a mind of its own when it comes to assigning letters at boot-up. Sometimes it can be pretty bloody-minded. Thanks for helping me put my computer in its place.

By: graham taylor

graham taylor — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 07:12:54 +0000

Bless you! Photoshop and I will love you forever.

By: daan verschuere

daan verschuere — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 22:10:07 +0000

Thank you. You solved my problem instantly!!!

By: Berton

Berton — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 01:48:59 +0000

I use Computer Management, Disk Management section to assign a drive letter, keeps it static although once in awhile changing USB ports screws that up. My need is for accessing those HDDs from other computers on the Network.

By: Stanley Zarowin

Stanley Zarowin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 11:48:37 +0000

I have an external drive plugged (via USB) into my computer. Although it works fine, every time I plug anything else (a stick or my cell phone) into one of the other available USB’s, the drive letter for my external drive changes, and that messes up my automated backup arrangement because the backup software no longer has that drive to copy to. Although it’s easy to fix, I’m seeking a way to get the drive letter for that external drive to remain fixed. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Stan

By: Eduardo

Eduardo — Tue, 11 May 2010 15:53:57 +0000

Thanks!! Great tutorial.

By: ash

ash — Sat, 01 May 2010 12:04:32 +0000

Thanks very much sorted my problem out!

After plugging and unplugging various external drives to my pc, the drive letters changed which caused my file share program to struggle to source the correct files from the relevant drives.

This problem has now been resolved thanks to your fix instructions.

Thank you!

By: Nielke

Nielke — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 08:08:27 +0000

Hello Charlie,

No I haven’t.
It seems that the only option left is to format the disk and loosing all the data!
I definitely don’t wanna do that.
Let me know if you find a solution. There has to be one..

By: Charlie

Charlie — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 12:46:20 +0000

Hey Nielke,

Dit you find out what’s the problem with “Change Drive Paths and Partition…”? I’ve the exact same problem.

Charlie