How To Change Drive Letters in Windows 7

After installing a new hard drive, or maybe just to keep your PC organized the way you like, you may want to change the drive letter of a hard drive partition or a CD/DVD/BD drive in Windows 7. The Windows 7 Disk Management tool makes this a snap.

Note: You cannot change the drive letter of the partition that Windows 7 is installed on. In a normal Windows 7 system, this is the "C" drive.

Follow these steps to change a drive letter in Windows 7:

Note: Not using Windows 7? See the tip at the bottom of the page for help.

Difficulty: Easy

Time Required: Changing drive letters in Windows 7 usually takes less than 5 minutes

Here's How:

1. Open Windows 7 Disk Management from the Computer Management utility.
   Note: You can also open Disk Management from the Command Prompt in Windows 7 but doing so from Computer Management is probably easier.
2. On the right-hand side of the screen, locate and right-click on the drive that you wish to change the drive letter of and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths....
3. In the Change Drive Letter and Paths window, click on the Change... button.
   The Change Drive Letter or Path dialog box will appear.
4. Choose the drive letter you wish to assign to this drive by clicking the letter from the drop-down box on the right.
   Click OK.
5. The Disk Management window that appears advises you that "Some programs that rely on drive letters might not run correctly. Do you want to continue?".
   Note: If you have software installed to this drive, the software may stop functioning after a drive letter change. Nearly all software defaults to the primary drive though, so this is rarely a concern.
6. If you're sure you want to make this change, click Yes.
   This change should be almost instantaneous.
7. You can now close any open Computer Management, Administrative Tools, or Control Panelwindows.

Tips:

1. Not a Windows 7 user? See How Do I Change a Drive Letter in Windows? for specific instructions for your version of Windows.