Windows 10: How to Show Drive Letters first before Drive Names in Windows 10 Explorer

Drive names or volume labels appear before the drive letters in Windows OS by default. But, if you want, you can change this default behavior and show drive letters first before drive names in Windows 10. Whenever you will open File Explorer, you will see that letters (C, D, E, etc.) of all drives are visible before volume labels.



Show Drive Letters first before Drive Names in Explorer


Before you perform this Registry tweak, take Registry Editor backup. If something unwanted happens, you will able to use that backup to restore Registry Editor to the earlier state. After that, follow these steps:

1. Open Registry Editor
2. Access Explorer key
3. Open ShowDriveLettersFirst DWORD value
4. Set 4 in its Value data
5. Press OK button
6. Restart File Explorer.

Use the Search box of Windows 10, type regedit, and hit Enter to open Registry Editor.

Now access the Explorer Registry key. The path is:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer



On the right-hand section, you will see multiple values.

You need to access and open the ShowDriveLettersFirst DWORD value by double-clicking on it.

If this value is not present, then you can create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value and rename it to ShowDriveLettersFirst. After that, double-click on that value, and a small window will pop up.



In that window, put 4 in the Value data field, and use the OK button. Now you can close Registry Editor.

Finally, restart File Explorer. Open File Explorer and you will see that drive or volume letters are visible first.

To undo the changes, use the above steps, put 0 in Value data of ShowDriveLettersFirst DWORD value, and hit the OK button.

Restart File Explorer and volume labels will appear before volume letters.

Tweak Drive letters using Ultimate Windows Tweaker




If you want a quicker way to show drive letters before drive names, then you can use our free Ultimate Windows Tweaker tool. There are more than 200 tweaks in UWT and showing drive letters first is one of those tweaks. Grab the zip file of this tool, extract it, and execute its EXE file. After that, use these steps:

1. Access the Customization category on its interface
2. Click on the File Explorer tab on the right section
3. Select Before Labels option from the drop-down menu of Tweak Drive Letters menu
4. Press the Apply Tweaks button.

After that, it will restart File Explorer automatically to successfully apply the changes.

To show drive names first again using this tool, follow the above steps, select the After Labels option from the drop-down menu of the Tweak Drive Letters menu, and click on Apply Tweaks button.

Read next: How to hide a drive in Windows 10.

Hope these two options are helpful.


This article How to Show Drive Letters first before Drive Names in Windows 10 Explorer first appeared on TheWindowsClub.com.

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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

Hi Bill

My name is Andre Da Costa; an Independent Consultant, Windows Insider MVP and Windows & Devices for IT MVP. I'm here to help you with your problem.

Did you go through these steps to assign the drive letters you prefer?

Press Windows key + X

Click Disk Management

If you see your drive listed there, but no drive letter, right click it

Click Change Drive Letter and Paths

Click Add

Click Assign the following drive letter

Click in the Drive letter list box

Choose a drive letter - try choosing letters near the end of the alphabet

Click OK

Click OK again

 

2nd and 3rd hard drives show two drive Letters

I recently was required to reinstall Windows 10 after I installed a new SSD as my C: drive. Now, I've got everything up and running I noted the drive letters that were assigned to my second and third hard drives were different than what I use to have and
not the drive letters I preferred. I followed the instructions to change the drive letter and they did not change but rather it added the new drive letter I assigned to the old drive letter. Below, is what File Explorer shows me now. I noted that the I
and J are shown with a colon but D and E do not.

Local Disk (C

Local Disk (D) (I

Local Disk (E) (J

I then went back into Device Manager and chose to "change the drive letter" again but the next window allowed me to remove the extra drive letter so I removed it (J and found that disk no longer appeared in File Explorer at all and became inaccessible.
The drive does continue to show up in Device Manager and Disk Management and continues to show both drive letters.

I have spent several days researching this problem, trying many suggestions listed on Help web pages and nothing has been successful.