Windows 10 fails to assign drive letter to external USB hard disk drive on plugin
Solution 1
That sounds like a volume flag is set. Try this procedure to let Windows assign a letter automatically.
1. Open a CMD prompt with Administrator previlege.
2. Type in DiskPart
and hit Enter.
3. Run the following commands one by one. Case insensitive.
List Disk
Identify your external drive from the given list manually. Assume it's disk # (a number), and run
Select Disk # Select Partition 1 Attribute Volume Clear NoDefaultDriveLetter
Done. Now on every Windows system it should be assigned with a letter automatically and show up in Explorer.
Solution 2
This issue drove me wild for half a year. I tried everything including the answer above, which was close but didn't resolve it. In the end it turned out to be that the volume was marked hidden. This is how I resolved the issue:
- Click the start menu or press the windows key
- Type
diskpart
and press the enter key - Click yes in the dialog that pops up
- Type
list volume
into the diskpart window and press the enter key - Identify the volume that is causing the issue and note the volume number
-
Type the following into the diskpart window (replace
X
with the volume number from the previous step):select volume X attributes volume
-
If the hidden attribute is
yes
then this is your problem. Simply type:attributes volume clear hidden
Then press the enter key and windows should automatically assign a drive letter.
-
If it doesn't it might be that automount is disabled or stuck you can try fixing that with:
automount disable automount enable
Solution 3
Just to add to kaan_a's answer:
With Windows 10 DiskPart, when you execute
List Volume
A table will appear and show as "INFO". This will show the status of the volume and, in the example attached, which happened to me, it showed as "Hidden".
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Kile Damgaard Asmussen
Updated on September 18, 2022Comments
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Kile Damgaard Asmussen almost 2 years
I have a correctly formatted (Master Boot Record, FAT32) 500 GB SATA 2.5 inch drive in an external hard drive enclosure, connected by USB chord.
This drive automatically mounts flawlessly to my Ubuntu laptop, but when plugged into my Windows 10 laptop, it only registers the presence of a USB device that can be "safely removed," it doesn't assign a drive letter.
This is terribly inconvenient, as you might imagine.
How do I figure out if this is possible, and if it is, how do I fix it?
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Ale..chenski over 7 yearsYep, the DiskPart is a great utility, only needs a very carful handling. But does it exist under Win 10? technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766465(v=ws.10).aspx
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iBug over 7 yearsWhy do you think it doesn't exist in Win10??? It's ever been there since WinXP (or even earlier!). It's a command-line utility, which means it has no GUI.
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Ale..chenski over 7 yearsjust asking... utilities may come and go. Search is gone. Webcam is gone. It is not a given that a vending kiosk as W10 has any utilities.
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iBug over 7 yearsSystem utilities never go. Like servicing
sc.exe
, Net Shellnetsh.exe
, Net Usernet.exe
and Task Schedulersched.exe
(previouslyat.exe
). -
McGuireV10 almost 7 yearsThis worked for me, except I had to do
list volume
thenselect volume #
, otherwise the attribute command would return "No volume selected."