How to Assign a Letter to a New Hard Drive

Each hard drive that is hooked up to your computer, internal or external, is assigned a letter to identify it. The default drive on your computer is often the C: drive, but all other drives are usually named in the order that they are installed. If you use multiple drives, it can be helpful to rename them. But renaming a hard drive is not the same as renaming any other file. It must be done through the computer's drive manager.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Computer with Administrator permissions.

1. Right-click on "My Computer" and select "Manage". If you use Windows Vista, click on the "Start" button, and then right-click on "Computer" and select "Manage".

2. With the Computer Management window now open, click on the "Disk Management" tab under the heading "Storage" on the sidebar.

3. Choose the drive you want to change. There should now be a list of the drives on your computer. To change the letter of a drive, right-click on the drive you want to change and then select "Change Drive Letter and Paths".

4. Rename the drive. This will open up a window that includes the option of "Change". Here you can choose from the available letters to rename your drive. Some drives cannot be renamed, such as the default C: drive.

Tips & Warnings

• The Disk Management page is a handy tool to monitor the status of all of your hard drives.
• Changing settings on a computer should only be done if you have Administrator privileges, and any other necessary permissions.