Is there a way to unassign drive letter?

Hi Shawn:
I'm not quite sure what I did, but I plug in a thumb drive (that used to be Drive T) & it no longer shows up in File Explorer.

Edited 12/21/2021: This first sentence is no longer applicable. I was able to use something in WinXP to change the structure of the USB drive (converted to MBR), so that it is now visible in Win10 File Explorer. However, the rest of this post still is a problem.

Furthermore, Drive T seems to be assigned somewhere because I can't change any drive to T, using Disk Management.

Is there a way to unassign Drive T, have this thumb drive show up in File Explorer, & then reassign T as a fixed drive?

Thanks in advance.

Hello phrab,

Did you try rebooting the PC?

Does it show up if your run "Get-PSDrive" from powershell?

steve108 said:

Hello phrab,

Did you try rebooting the PC?

Does it show up if your run "Get-PSDrive" from powershell?

Hi Steve:
Thanks for replying. I tried rebooting & when I run Get-PSDrive, it doesn't show up.
I've been having lots of problems lately, so I think I'm going to restore my computer to about a week ago before I had problems. Then I'll restore my files (hopefully).✌

So I'll be offline for a couple hours.

phrab said:

Hi Steve:
Thanks for replying. I tried rebooting & when I run Get-PSDrive, it doesn't show up.
I've been having lots of problems lately, so I think I'm going to restore my computer to about a week ago before I had problems. Then I'll restore my files (hopefully).✌

So I'll be offline for a couple hours.

Wait .......... Before you do that, try sfc, dism, and chkdsk

steve108 said:

Wait .......... Before you do that, try sfc, dism, and chkdsk

Sorry. I immediately restored to an earlier date. I can try what you suggested (& will), but because I use Mathew's vbs files for updating, I have to undo those changes first.

Win10 still doesn't recognize my T thumbdrive (with almost a months of backups) & won't let me change my other thumbdrive (History) to H, saying it's reserved.

I'd like to do both, if there's a way.

phrab said:

Sorry. I immediately restored to an earlier date. I can try what you suggested (& will), but because I use Mathew's vbs files for updating, I have to undo those changes first.

Win10 still doesn't recognize my T thumbdrive (with almost a months of backups) & won't let me change my other thumbdrive (History) to H, saying it's reserved.

I'd like to do both, if there's a way.

No worries. Do you have another PC to test that your T USB drive is readable there?

Also use Get-Volume vs Get-PSDrive for more useful output in this case. Also try a different USB drive in this PC if you don't have another PC to try the other T: drive USB.

steve108 said:

No worries. Do you have another PC to test that your T USB drive is readable there?

Yes. Just tried it. It doesn't show up there either. I'd reformat it, except it doesn't show up on either computer. Don't know what I did to this thumbdrive.[/QUOTE]

steve108 said:

Also use Get-Volume vs Get-PSDrive for more useful output in this case. Also try a different USB drive in this PC if you don't have another PC to try the other T: drive USB.

Here's my output:

Code:

PS C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7> Get-Volume

DriveLetter FriendlyName FileSystemType DriveType HealthStatus OperationalStatus SizeRema
                                                                                    ining
----------- ------------ -------------- --------- ------------ ----------------- --------
            Passport2    NTFS           Fixed     Healthy      OK                …1.97 MB
                         FAT32          Fixed     Healthy      OK                67.32 MB
S                        Unknown        CD-ROM    Healthy      Unknown                0 B
H           History      NTFS           Removable Healthy      OK                85.53 GB
C           Local Disk   NTFS           Fixed     Healthy      OK                …9.98 GB
R                        Unknown        CD-ROM    Healthy      Unknown                0 B
D           Passport1    NTFS           Fixed     Healthy      OK                 1.51 TB

When I insert the drive in either computer, & use "USB Properties", it says it can't do 'anything" unless I return the device to the system & I don't know how to do that.

Code:

DriveLetter FriendlyName       FileSystemType DriveType HealthStatus OperationalStatus SizeRemaining      Size
----------- ------------       -------------- --------- ------------ ----------------- -------------      ----
D           USB DISK           FAT32          Removable Healthy      OK                     115.4 GB  115.4 GB

is what I see for my USB. Do you not have another USB drive to test with?

steve108 said:

Code:

DriveLetter FriendlyName       FileSystemType DriveType HealthStatus OperationalStatus SizeRemaining      Size
----------- ------------       -------------- --------- ------------ ----------------- -------------      ----
D           USB DISK           FAT32          Removable Healthy      OK                     115.4 GB  115.4 GB

is what I see for my USB. Do you not have another USB drive to test with?

Yes, I have several other thumbdrives. They all load. If I try to change any of them to Drive "T", they immediately change back. Apparently, one drive (& I think it's the one that doesn't show up) is fixed to Drive T, so no others can be drive T. But I can't use my usual method for "unfixing", which is to insert the drive, & use "USB remove" (my utility), to "unfix' the drive (because it doesn't show up in File Explorer).

How odd. So even after you reboot, the PC has fond memories of the T: USB? Have you tried deleting hidden/ghost USB devices from Device Manager?