Windows 10: Repeated loss of assigned disk drive

I have a new laptop HP running Windows 11. I have an external hard drive Lacie which I have assigned the letter Z in disk management. Several times a day, my Z drive loses its letter, although another external drive Samsung which I have labeled S, does not. When the Z drive loses its letter, it cannot be found in file explorer or other programs like Lightroom. I will attach 2 screenshots that I hope will be helpful. Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

:)

 

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.

 

Optical drive letters keep swapping

Open Disk Management (click Start, type diskmgmt.msc in the Search box, and press Enter).

1. In the lower pane, right-click on your optical drive and select "Change drive letter and paths"
2. Assign Y: to the first optical drive
3. Repeat step 1 for the second optical drive and assign Z:

 

Disk management console view is not up-to-date

i dont know how to fix your disk management, but i can fix your partition problems...




open up Command Prompt with admin rights. (Right click, run as admin)


enter in
DISKPART
list disk

then find the Disk number for your Raid array... lets call it number 7 ( you can tell what disk is what by the total size)
type in

Select Disk 7
List Partition (will give you a list of all the partitions..)
Select Partition 1 (im assuming you only have 1 partition on Disk 7) repeat this step if you have more partitions.
ASSIGN


that should get the array up and running ready to use.


EDITED.

any problems, post back ^^


Still EDITING *Stick Out Tongue

side question, have you tried restarting the PC?