Change a drive letter from Command Prompt or batch script in Windows 8?

Question

I have an external hard drive that I connect often to my computer. At some point it was assigned letter G: and based on that my other software works.

Nowadays, suddenly it gets letter F:

Is there any way I can use a batch script to change the letter from F: to G:. I don't mind running the batch script manually?

If so, what is the code I should use and will it need administrative permissions?

Solution

There are several methods:

• mountvol – use it once to delete an existing letter, then again to assign a new one;

• diskpart – interactive;

• diskmgmt.msc aka Disk Management – a graphical tool.

Whichever you choose, assigning once should be enough, the assignment will be remembered afterwards.

Comments

[tvdo]

See diskpart and yes you need admin. In theory it should have remembered the drive letter, consider changing it manually on disk management first.

[user1686]

@Bob: It could be that it only remembers drive letters after they have been assigned manually at least once.

[Eshwar]

Thanks! I have changed it a couple of times manually, but everytime it goes back to the old one.

[BtF]

I have noticed that it was remembered when I had one device using a drive letter. When I started using multiple devices with the same drive letter, they get forgot, I have not verified the hypothesis, but I guess Windows 10 remembers the last device assigned to a drive letter.