Windows 10: Ssd lost its drive letter

I created a dual boot drive using a usb and after I was finished I couldn’t access my ssd. I see it in disk management and everywhere else but when I try to assign it a letter every option is greyed out. How do I assign without formatting?

:)

 

Cloning to SSD then swapping drive letters


@SamHobbs
What you want done is very simple and can be done in short period of time. Here's my suggestion:
There's 2 modes that Windows can be installed: UEFI and the old legacy MBR. Open Disk Management, look at the disk where your C drive is, if there's a

1. EFI System Partition, your Windows was installed using UEFI.
2. System Reserved partition, your Windows was installed using MBR

Next, Connect your SSD to an available Sata port (no need to format or do anything). Download: Macrium Reflect Free . Install and run. Follow the steps below:

1. From Macrium, click on image this disk under your C drive and save it to either an Internal or External Drive. This will create a single backup image of the whole disk containing your C drive.
2. Again, from Macrium, click on Restore tab and select the image created from step 1, Select your SSD as the destination drive, click Next->Finish
3. Exit Macrium. If your Windows was installed using MBR, Open disk management and make sure the SSD is marked "Active" else go to next step.
4. Shutdown your PC. Disconnect the HD containing Windows C drive then connect your SSD to it.
5. Reboot. Your PC should boot and the Windows should have C as the drive letter.

NOTE: The procedure above is to backup your Windows to an image file then copy it back to the SSD. This ensures proper cluster size aligment for the SSD. In addition, Macrium also perform Trimming for the SSD. This is more preferable than cloning.

 

Drive letters switched after update and it's not possible to change them back

I did all the disk cleanup steps that you mentioned and after that the problem still persisted. After that I decided to reinstall Win10 Image (keeping apps and personal data). And even after that the problem still exists.

List of drives:

1TB HDD that had F: as drive letter

1TB HDD that has D: as drive letter

500GB M.2. SSD that has C: as drive letter

250GB SATA SSD that had H: as drive letter

The former H: SSD drive basically took the F: letter from the 1TB former F: drive HDD and the HDD that lost it's letter does not have any letter in disk management and it's not possible to add one and on file explorer it is listed as E: drive.

I can change the SSD back to H: using disk management but after every single restart it takes the F: letter back. This all began after 21H2 update.

Could it affect that both of the drives (former F: and H have partition style Master Boot Record (MBR) while the rest of the drives have GUID Partition Table (GUID)?

 

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.