drive letter missing from the list of available drive letters

Agh55 · 06 Oct 2018

Hi, I have a portable hard drive that when I plug in it is always allocated a drive letter of "M". I have programmed SYNC Toy to back up my PC to the M Drive. However now it is been allocated a drive letter of P. When I go to "This PC", I can see the drive letter M is showing and is free. When I go to Disk management, right click the Portable hard drive to change the drive letter, M is not showing. How can I free this up to reallocate the drive letter M.

dalchina · 06 Oct 2018

Hi,

When I go to "This PC", I can see the drive letter M is showing and is free.

- the fact that the drive letter appears then shows it is allocated to something.

Does a drive M: not appear in Disk Management?

Please download and install Minitool Partition Wizard (free) and post a screenshot, expanding all columns as necessary so all text is visible.
To post a screenshot please use the Insert Image icon above your post. Thanks.

Agh55 · 30 Oct 2018

Hi Dalchina, apologies for the delay in responding,( I thought my son was dealing with this in my absence) I have just returned from holidays last night, back to the cold.

I'm always dubious about downloading software, can you please advise where I can download the Minitool Partition wizard.

I notice on "my PC", I have the following drives G,H,I,J and L all showing empty not connected ( they are named USB drives, but are not showing up as Drive letters on disk management.

I was able to temporary resolve the issue by renaming one of the free drives to Z which freed up the M letter.

dalchina · 30 Oct 2018

Hi, a search engine is a wonderful thing.

Here is a useful trick for you, so you know you're getting something from a reputable site.

a. Pick a reputable site - I've chose softpedia in this example.
b. Specify your search thus:
minitool partition wizard site:softpedia.com

This will specifically search that site.

tucows.com, filhippo.com are others.

Here is what I found for you:
Download MiniTool Partition Wizard Free 10.3

You might also try a search like this:
minitool partition wizard home page

Note I have added 'home page'

This is what I found for you:
Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

Tricks like this are very useful to know - it is worth learning how to use search engines to get to what you want more reliably and more quickly. You can do more than you think.

Note that if you allocate a drive letter to a removable drive using Disk Management, then as I think you know, it will always be allocated that letter, unless that letter is in use.

But you can only allocate a letter like that to one particular drive. If you allocate it to a second, it will only remain applicable to the last of those two plugged in in sequence- the first will lose that letter.

Agh55 · 31 Oct 2018

Hi Dalchina, I have uploaded 4 files, hopefully, this will let you see what's going on on my PC.

Thanks for the Masterclass on Browser searching, I didn't know you could define your search as accurately as this, another school day for me. I will pass this on to some friends

dalchina · 31 Oct 2018

Thanks, those look basically fine- you have a disk allocated to M: - does the physical disk exist and is it connected? - except as you show the letter M is still available, and G onwards are missing too.
Strange- no immediate thought - new to me. I can now see what you have noticed.

Please see:
Several Ways to Get the Missing Drive Letters Back in Windows
- find the section headed
Drive Letter Missing from the List of Available Drive Letters

To consider - why do you have a small System partition on Disk 2
- do you wish to retain what I assume is the factory reset partition (F: )

Search: you might find these videos and exercises interesting:
Improve Online Search Skills With Free Courses From Google | Gizmo's Freeware

Agh55 · 02 Nov 2018

Hi, the path does exist and is connected. I have read how to get missing letters back and if this happens again I will work through their guidance.

Also on the second drive, that is the factory reset. I'm currently doing some housekeeping on this drive and will copy the files to a portable hard drive before I will delete this partition.

I will also read and watch the videos on online searching.

Once again thanks for all your help.

dalchina · 03 Nov 2018