There are times when you might notice that the Drive letter from the File Explorer is missing, right after you install an update in your Windows 10 computer. So if you are facing this issue right now, then you’ve come to the right place as this post will guide you on what to do to fix it.
In case you don’t know, a drive letter represents a single alphabetic character which is through A-Z typically. This could be assigned to a physical disk partition, floppy disk drive or the removal device/ CD-ROM/ mapping network drive in your PC.
In most cases, the drive letter “C:” is assigned to the first disk partition where the running Windows is installed. Thus, if the assigned letter is missing from either the Disk Management or the Windows File Explorer, it could result in inconveniences or will leave the partition inaccessible. To fix this problem, you can try to show the missing drive letters manually or make sure that the drive has a drive letter assigned in the Disk Management as well as assign the letter using a tweak in the Windows Registry. For more details, refer to the options provided below.
Option 1 – Try to show the missing drive letters manually
- Open the Folder Options from the Start Search and go to the View tab,
- Next, scroll down on the list of given options until you see the “Show drive letters” option and then check the box that’s marked against this option.
- After that, click on the Apply and OK buttons and then go back to the “This PC” window. You should now see the drive letters
Option 2 – Make sure that the drive has a drive letter assigned in Disk Management
As you know, every drive is assigned a drive letter in Disk Management. However, if it goes missing, you can still get it back through Disk Management. To do so, follow the steps below.
- Open Disk Management and from there, right-click on the menu of a partition or volume and you should see a function named “Change Drive Letter and Paths”.
Note: This function allows you to add the drive letter, remove the drive letter and change the drive letter. If the last option, namely, “Remove”, is selected and applied, the letter of the drive will be removed and won’t appear in Disk Management. Thus, this could be one of the reasons why a drive letter is missing.
- You need to click on “Add” to assign a letter to the selected drive in order to reverse the change. Note that you must assign the drive with the original letter because if not, the programs that rely on the original letter might not work as expected.
- If the original letter is already taken by a new drive, you need to change the letter of that new drive to another available letter.
- Then allocate the released letter of the targeted drive.
Option 3 – Try assigning the letter using a Registry tweak
The next thing you can do to fix the problem is to assign the letter using a tweak in the Windows Registry but before you do that, make sure that you create a System Restore point first, after that, follow these steps:
- Tap the Win + R keys to open Run and type “Regedit” in the field and then tap Enter to open the Registry Editor.
- Next, navigate to this registry path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMMountedDevices
- From there, check if a device is shown as being mounted at the specific drive letter and then right-click on that drive letter.
- Select the “Rename” option from the right-click menu to change the letter to any other available letter.
- Exit the Registry Editor and restart your computer.
Option 4 – Try to format the destination drive
Formatting the drive can also help you resolve the error. To format it, follow these steps:
- To get started formatting your drive, tap the Win + E keys and then go to the access page of the drive.
- Next, right-click on the drive and select Format.
- After that, uncheck the “Quick Format” option and then format your drive properly.
- Now once the formatting process is finished, unplug the drive and plug it back in afterward.
- Check if the error is already fixed. If the drive is not initialized, tap the Win + R keys and hit Enter.
- After opening the Run dialog box, type “diskmgmt.msc” and hit Enter to open Disk Management.
- From there, right-click on the drive volume and select initialize disk.
- Next, select the correct partition type and proceed.