Well, this feature is available from Windows XP. This is not new on Vista. Seems that MS marketing is so good that they put the never used old features as “new” ones in Vista.

So how do we change the drive letter assigned to the boot or system partition ?

Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I just got a new notebook with Vista. Great machine, Vista takes getting used to. I have an external drive that was H and now it is E. I have looked for this answer but not found it. Thanks again.

My new Vista HP SmartCenter computer runs like a top but when I plugged in an external drive or flashstick, it assumed the E: drive, previously occupied by the CD/DVD ROM. When I disconnect the external, the E: drive now just goes away and disc management says that the CD/DVD ROM can’t connect (of course, since it’s no longer assigned a drive letter). Sytem restoring to an earlier date doesn’t help either. How do I get the computer to recognize the CD/DVD ROM again, and how do I keep this from happening again? When I first brought this problem to the “Geek Squad” they said the optical drive had gone bad on the CD/DVD and got HP to replace the entire computer. The new one developed the same issue (lost CD/DVD ROM) after I plugged in my flashdrive. Just can’t believe it’s 2 bad optical drives in a new computer. Please help. Many thanks. Chris

Thank you for ur help!

Yes, this isn’t anything new.

I’ve always used it in XP to assign my DVD, card readers, and other partition letters. They all tend to get automagically assigned whenever I reinstall.

One problem with the Vista though is if you have two partitions on your boot drive (C and D lets say) you can not reassign D.

Even though it isn’t your boot or system partition and there are no page space files on it, you will get the error.

This didn’t happen in XP.

What happens if I change my drive name but not its letter. For example if drive C: is titled Local (C:) and I change it to Boot (C:) does this effect any programs that use drive C: because of the name change?

Thanks

Perfect exactly what I was looking for. Thanks

Hey I used diskpart in vista to shrink my drive 1024mb and convert it to fat and assign a drive letter with the computer management console thanks you your the greatest :-{) mustache lmao

My new Vista system doesn’t assign a drive letter to the old external drive I plugged in. The drive appears in the disk management window, but the pull down menu does not include “assign/change drive letter”. The drive doesn’t show up in “Computer”, though it shows as working normally in device manager. Any thoughts from anyone? Thanks in advace.

Just what I was looking for. Thanx

The drive letters have dissapeared,I have checked under disk management and they are not in that file,however they show up in Device Manager, with an error CODE 39.
I did look inside the PC and removed the video card and replaced it,with the same card. I am running Vista ,also I am tole remeving the Video causes this to have an effect with the drives. I have restored to an earlier time ,that was not successful in repairing it.

Can you help

Dennis

Great info. I have an external 500 GB HD that has over 300GB of files on it, I just got a replacement internal 1TB drive, and wanted to name the new drive with the “old” external drives letter, so I do not have to go into each program that I use settings and change the destination drive of output files.
thanks for the info!

Just the type of answer i was lookin for. I used to update my ipod from the mp3 collection in my ext hard drtive. It was default drive F. all of a sudden it assumed drive g. so the entire collection in itunes got mixed. now to thanks to this.. i can set it back to the old letter. thanks a bunch guys!!

sadly, in my version of vista home premium, right-clicking “computer” doesn’t give me a management option.

i hate OS’s that treat me like i’m a 3 year old.

thanks a lot, thanks so much… that helped me a lot :)

This article never says that this feature is new to vista. Everything about vista is ddifferent from XP so some ppl require some info to get used to vista. and flash gordon open my computer and on the right side there is a list of folders right click computer there and you will see the option manage.

Thanks, but can me help somebody for also changing the drive letter of the SYSTEM-VOLUME %SystemRoot%
I tried different possibilities like HKEY_ or bcdedit etc.
Im my multibootsystem the current VISTA always names the/her %SystemRoot% = C:
I´wd like to run my Vista with driveletter D:
Please help me

It worked! I needed to change a drive letter for Ex-HD so I wouldn’t have to reload my iTunes music library. Perfect instruction; easy to follow, and worked first time. I used to visit Lockernome regularly up to a few years ago, but lost touch. Now I’m using Vist 32bit and V. Glad I found you again. Lockergnome has always been the best source for tech info. BTW, FYI, I think Vista is a great system…keep it properly maintained, updated, virus free, backed up, and it works gggrrrrrr88888! Just for the hell of it, I’m going to install Linux on a spare computer that was has been running XP just to see how it works. C U later. Thanks.

Thanks a million, I have all of my iTunes music stored on an external, and i recently bought a usb jumpdrive and vista reassigned the jump drive (g:) and the external drive which was (g:) was assigned to (h:) and iTunes got all retarded and said it had NO IDEA where my music went. Stupid computers.

I’ve got to ask: has anyone else here seen instances of their computer randomly changing the drive letter of external harddrives and/or thumbdrives when they are plugged in or safely removed? “Baffling” is the nicest word I can use to describe this phenomenon - one of many that have caused much wanted stress and high blood pressure here in the middle of Mid-Term season…