Change a Drive Letter in Windows XP

This will show you to change the drive letter associated with a particular drive. Sometimes it's just cool to have an (X:) drive, or an (S:) drive.

Steps

  1. Right click "My Computer".
  2. Drag down to "Manage" and click "Manage".
  3. In the "Computer Management" sidebar click "Disk Management".
  4. Right click on the drive letter you want to change.
    • Please read warnings before continuing any further!
    • If you can't see the drive letter you want to change you can scroll down.
    • For a drive that has "Online" under it, the drive letter will be in the media area.
    • For a drive that has "No Media" under it, the drive letter will be in that same box.
  5. Drag down to "Change Drive Letter and Paths..." click "Change Drive Letter and Paths...".
  6. In the "Change Drive Letter and Paths for (drive letter:)" window, click "Change..."
  7. In the "Change Drive Letter or Path" window click the drag down selection box with the drive letter in it and click the letter you want the drive to be.
  8. A warning will pop up reminding you that changing the drive letter can cause your programs to fail. If you are confident that you want to still want to change the letter, click "Yes".
  9. If you have a program using the drive you want to change, you will get an additional warning. Unless you really know for certain what you are doing, select "No" and find the open program.



Tips

  • Close all open programs before starting.
  • Change one of your removable drives or a spare hard drive to your favorite letter.

Warnings

  • Note: Correction. While it is VERY highly discouraged, it is possible to change your system/boot/main drive letter in windows XP/SP1, 2, and 3. Be advised, that in many cases it may render your system unbootable. However if you absolutely must change it in order for your system to function correctly, you can visit the Microsoft support article Article ID: 223188. Please do this at your own risk.
  • Programs can become confused if a drive letter it needs to function becomes unavailable.
  • Never change your main drive letter.
  • If settings won't stay mapped after rebooting it is possible to write a manual remapping batch file using DISKPART.
  • This method will not work if you wish to change your main drive letter. Windows XP S2 will not let you.

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