Windows 10: How to restore drive letter on a disc that suddenly is showing as non-initiated

The one-tb data storage drive on my Dell XPS8700 died and was replaced by a local repair technician. Every thing works fine except my WD external 3tb drive shows up in disc management as "non-initiated." This is a different drive from the storage drive that was replaced. This external drive shows on 'This PC' as the correct letter and I can access all the information on the drive. However it still shows as "non-initiated" in disc management. Obviously, I don't want to re-initiate as this will remove all the data I need to transfer to the new data storage drive that was just replaced. I

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help. USB drive isn't assigned a drive letter.

Any usb flash drive I plug into my computer isn't assigned a drive letter. The physical drive shows in the "safely remove hardware" but it doesnt show up in disk management. I have tried to populate the volume thru the safely remove hardware properties window and it does pop up in the list but it doesn't stay there. This isn't a format or assign a letter problem. It's more complicated then that. Maybe one of the services needed for usb drive management was disabled? Suggestions needed. btw external usb harddrives work fine.

 

2nd and 3rd hard drives show two drive Letters

Hello Andre: I followed the instructions carefully and this is what this process amounted to. I followed this step by step.

Press Windows key + X - Worked fine

Click Disk Management - Worked fine

If you see your drive listed there, but no drive letter, right click it -
All my drives showed up with there drive letters. When I clicked on the drive - Local Disk (D) (I. The panel came up " change drive letter and path.

Click Change Drive Letter and Paths - for local disk (D)" and in the panel it said "Allow access to this volume by using the following drive letter and paths". In
the panel that shows up it shows a drive icon and the letter I: . Below this are the options to ADD, CHANGE and REMOVE.

Click Add - When I click the ADD button a new panel comes up and the only option allowed is "Mount in the following empty NTFS folder". When I enter the letter D:
( the drive letter I'm trying to get too) and click on the OK button it opens a new panel comes up and tells me "The device is not ready".

Click Assign the following drive letter - I then go back a few panels and select CHANGE, this time the same panel opens up but this time the other option is locked
in as my only choice - "Assign the following drive letter". I enter D: again and in the pull down menu the letter D is not available for me to choose.

Click in the Drive letter list box - Then I go back to the previous panel and select REMOVE, now the new panel tells me "Some of the programs you rely on drive letters
might not respond correctly. Are you sure you want to remove this drive letter. I did not proceed as I've done this before and it does remove the drive letter I: but the in Disk Management the now D: dive is no longer accessible.

So now I have explored all three options that were presented when I right clicked on the "Click Change Drive Letter and Paths" In the end I was not able to remove the drive letters I and J from disk management

Thanks very much for the assistance, do you have any other suggestions I can use to correct this issue? I thought I might try deleting the D letter leaving the drive letter I, then going back in and try changing that
drive letter back to D done in two separate steps??? Bill

 

Reformatting - Wrong Drive Letters?

Ok, do so googling about acronis True Image 11 and disk letters. Its the program I use to save all my info, and I know that people wee having troubles with the drive letters there. It was something about modifying the boot.ini and assigning drives. Anyway, I found this for you:

Change the System/Boot Drive Letter
Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
322756 (How to back up and restore the registry in Windows) How to back up and restore the registry in Windows
1. Make a full system backup of the computer and system state.
2. Log on as an Administrator.
3. Start Regedt32.exe.
4. Go to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
5. Click MountedDevices.
6. On the Security menu, click Permissions.
7. Verify that Administrators have full control. Change this back when you are finished with these steps.
8. Quit Regedt32.exe, and then start Regedit.exe.
9. Locate the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
10. Find the drive letter you want to change to (new). Look for "\DosDevices\C:".
11. Right-click \DosDevices\C:, and then click Rename.

Note You must use Regedit instead of Regedt32 to rename this registry key.
12. Rename it to an unused drive letter "\DosDevices\Z:".

This frees up drive letter C.
13. Find the drive letter you want changed. Look for "\DosDevices\D:".
14. Right-click \DosDevices\D:, and then click Rename.
15. Rename it to the appropriate (new) drive letter "\DosDevices\C:".
16. Click the value for \DosDevices\Z:, click Rename, and then name it back to "\DosDevices\D:".
17. Quit Regedit, and then start Regedt32.
18. Change the permissions back to the previous setting for Administrators (this should probably be Read Only).
19. Restart the computer.