Change or Modify the Drive Letter and Paths in Windows Vista

In Windows Vista, if for whatever reason the drive letter or paths assignment to a disk drive, CD or DVD drive, flash memory disk drive, or external hard disk drive needed to be changed or modified, users can use Disk Management console to manage the volumes and drives on the computer just like in Windows XP, including changing the drive letter and paths.

To change the drive letter or paths in Windows Vista, just follow these simple steps:

  1. Right click on Computer and select Manage to open and access Computer Management Console.
  2. Navigate to and expand the Storage section, and click on Disk Management to access Disk Management Console.
  3. Disk Management Console display the details of all available volumes and disk drives in the computer configuration in the right pane.
  4. Right click on the volume or disk drive that you want to change the drive letter, and select “Change Drive Letter and Paths).
  5. Then click on “Change” button.
  6. Use the drop down list to select the new and your desired drive letter to assign to the disk volume.
  7. Click OK.
  8. Click Yes to confirm.

Any letter between C and Z can be assigned to a hard disk drive, CD drive, DVD drive, portable external hard disk drive, or USB flash memory key drive, while floppy disk drives use up letters A and B. Beside, the drive letter for the system volume or boot partition cannot be modified or changed. And if you install some applications or programs in the drive that you have just changed the drive letter, they may not functioning properly after the change due to the possibilities that the programs will also refer to the specific drive letter or original path used when installation as environmental variables.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 26th, 2006 at 9:40 am and is filed under Operating Systems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Change or Modify the Drive Letter and Paths in Windows Vista”

  1. Change or Resize Partition (NTFS, FAT or FAT32) Size in Windows Vista » My Digital Life
    November 27th, 2006 00:11
    1

    [...] In Windows Vista, it’s very easy to change the size of the partition or resize partition by using Disk Management Console, which also provides ability to change drive letters or paths. Partitions with NTFS, FAT32 or FAT file system can be resized with the Disk Management utility. And unlike Windows XP or Windows 2000, there is no third-party application program such as Partition Magic needed. Disk Management Console can resize the partitions without any data loss or the need to delete and remove the existing partition and recreate the partition with new size. To resize partition size or change the size of partitions in Windows Vista: [...]

  2. John Galt
    March 20th, 2007 10:31
    2

    Using the exact methodology described above, I wanted to go from an installed version of XP with a dual boot of Vista on a separate drive to upgrading my XP to Vista, and freeing up my other drive for other uses.

    The ‘on-the-fly” resizing of partitions leaves a *lot* to be desired - there is a maximum / minimum the partitions can be resized, and I was unable to successfully merge 2 partitions, as numerous third party tools are able to do.

    Granted, it is a lot better than what is available in XP / 2000, but it still leaves a lot left to be desired, making third party tools almost a requirement - as they have been since I started using Windows 3.

  3. Nick
    April 15th, 2007 16:20
    3

    Is there a way of changing the floppy drive, mine has come up as “Floppy Disk Drive (B:)” and i would like to change it to A: like i have had it in every windows i have owned from Windows 3.11 right through to vista

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