Windows 10: Windows 11 not allocating a drive letter to a new USB CD/DVD Drive

I had an old Freecom USB CD/DVD drive, which had worked perfectly. For no obvious reason, it stopped working and Device Manager reported it as having a problem with the driver. I tried updating the driver, but Windows reported that the driver was the most up to date. Uninstalling the device in Device Manager and allowing Windows to find the device again also had no effect.I decided to buy a new drive, but the same problem occurred.I followed the instructions at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/your-cd-or-dvd-drive-is-not-recognized-by-windows-or-other-programs-64da3690-4c1d-ef04-63b8-

:)

 

How in WIN 11 do I change the drive letter of the CD/ROM drive?

Thanks, Greg.

So this is what worked, step by step.

Reboot

Drive is listed as E: in file explorer.

Drive not listed in Disk Management.

Insert DVD, it plays after short pause.

Disk management now shows Audio CD as E:

Right click, change letter to R: (while playing!)

Reboot.

Drive now shows as BD-RE drive as R: in File Explorer.

The bottom line is

- File Explorer does not provide for changing drive letter afics.

- Disk Management seems to need a disk to be in the drive for it to "see" the drive. I can't recall is this is Win 10 behaviour

I don't recall having any difficulty with this in Win 10 (its possible that the Win 10 default drive allocation was "after" my external drives; or I "just changed it").

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

 

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.

 

Windows 7 Professional keeps dropping the DVD/CD drive

Working with a fresh install (2nd attempt) of Windows 7 Professional on new hardware. The motherboard is a Gigabyte EP45-UD3P. Running 4G of RAM and an Intel Q9400 Quad Core CPU. The DVD/CD optical drive is a Pioneer DVR-218L.

Here's the problem - after two fresh installs, Windows 7 drops the DVD/CD drive and I get the following error in Device Manager (The device cannot start {code 10}). After the install, the drive works for a period of time, then stops working and I get the error code.

The driver appears to be a standard Windows driver (CD-ROM driver).

I've tried uninstalling the drive and re-installing it in Device Manager but it does not work - I continue to get the device error.

I've also swapped out the DVD/CD drive to insure it's not a bad unit. Same problem with both drives.

What do you suggest for next steps?? Could it be an issue with the motherboard?? A driver problem?

I visited the Pioneer web site - could not find any help or additional Windows 7 drivers.

What now??