How to Change a Floppy Drive Letter

Windows-based computers use 26 drive letters from A to Z that are assigned to computer drives and partitions. These drive letters indicate a particular path for programs and applications to reference. Drives A and B are designated for floppy drives, by default, and drives C through Z are for hard disk drives. At times, it may be necessary to change or modify a drive due to application needs. Changing your floppy drive letter is made simple with Windows built-in administrator tools.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Log on to your computer as an Administrator.

2. Click "Start," then click "Control Panel" and select "Classic View" from the left pane.

3. Click "Administrative Tools," double-click "Computer Management" and then click "Disk Management" in the right pane.

4. Right-click the floppy drive, then click "Change Drive Letter and Paths" and click "Change."

5. Click "Assign the following drive letter" and then click the drive letter that you want to use. Click "Yes" to confirm drive letter change.

Tips & Warnings

• Some computers only support the standard floppy disk drives of A and B and will not allow you to reassign drive letters to these disks. Many Microsoft-based programs refer to specific drive letters. Drive letters A and B are reserved for floppy drives and often referred to in programs requiring their use. Changing the drive letter may cause these programs to perform incorrectly.

References

• Changing the drive letter of a disk drive