Windows 10: USB drive says "Drive letter not available" multiple times when I plug it in...

This happens when I plug in my USB drive:This started when I decided to temporarily make it into a ChromeOS Flex installation disk. I installed it on a couple of computers, then wanted my USB drive back, so I deleted the old partitions using Disk Management and created a new volume. Ever since then, this has happened, and my USB drive is only usable with J:, not E: like I'm used to. In Disk Management, I get somewhat inconsistent information:As you can see, it is only showing one partition under "Disk 1," but in the partition table above, it shows 5, none of which seem to be accessible. Right-

:)

 

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.

 

Drive letters change when multiple drives plugged in.

If the drive has never been assigned a Drive letter, then windows will select the next available letter when you plug in that drive. For example - My system has a "C" drive (OS only), a "D" drive (Data only), a "E" (Dvd burner), if I plug in a device that never was assigned a drive letter, it will always be assigned "F" as long as nothing else is residing there, when it is plugged in. If I remove the device in "F" and then plug it back in, it will be assigned to "F".

I have 9 external hard drives for backups. They start with "Z" thru "R". For this system, the "U" drive is always used for Macrium Backups. I have set up Macrium to always backup to "U". Multiple backups are kept in separate directories on "U". Depending on which sub directory I'm using for backups at this time, I have separate Batch files that are used. I always keep more than 2 backup sets + I also keep backups of the backups on "R". I have batch files set up to copy the backup sets from "U" to "R". Note that the directory structure is the same on every one of these backup disks. Since I have multiple W10 systems, they also use the same structure as this system does, but they each use different drive letters.

Hope that clears it up.

 

Drive Letters not available

Hi,

Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft Community.

Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

If the letter E is not available it may be because it’s being used by any other drives. we can see from the screenshot which you have provided that the E: drive is used by DVD/CD-ROM.

If you want to assign E to Another drive you may have to assign DVD drive to any other letter which will free up the Alphabet E.

Please follow the steps to change the drive letter:

1.Right click on the start button and select Disk management.

2.Right click on the drive which you want to rename and select change drive letter and paths.

3.select the drive from the list and press apply and ok.


Hope the above information helps. Reply with necessary information and the result to help you further. Thank you.