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Windows 10 helpfully assigns drive letters to disks as they’re added, but they aren’t always the most logical choices. While we all know that C: is the system drive, it doesn’t make quite as much sense to have D: as your games drive or E: as your media drive. Luckily it’s quite easy to change a drive letter in Windows 10, and we’re going to walk you through the process today.

How does Windows 10 drive letter assignment work?

For the most part, Windows 10 automatically assigns letters to drives as they’re connected, in alphabetical order. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule that may leave some users confused.

As mentioned earlier, C: is always reserved for the system drive, but A: and B: are reserved too, for rarely used floppy drives. Because of Windows automatic assignment, you may have also noticed that Windows changes the drive letter of your USB stick if you’ve connected another before it.

If you want letters that are easier to identify in bios or don’t want your USB letters jumping around, it’s quite easy to permanently change a drive letter in Windows 10 to something of your choosing. We’re going to cover a few different ways today, including how to change the drive letter in CMD.

How to Change Drive Letter in Windows 10 via Disk Management

The most user-friendly way to assign drive letters in Windows is through the Disk Management interface, which is relatively easy to use.

Open Disk Management

Press “Ctrl+ X”, and click “Disk Management”.
Open the Windows 10 Change Drive Letter interface

Right-click the drive that you want to change or free the letter from and click “Change Drive Letter and Paths…”
Click the “Change…” button

If you want to free up the letter you can instead click “Remove”, or “Add” if it doesn’t have a letter.
Select “Assign the following drive letter”

In the dropdown next to it, use disk management to change the drive letter in Windows. Click “OK”.

How to Change Drive Letter in CMD using a DISKPART Disk Management Command

Though it’s not quite as user-friendly, it can be much faster to change a drive letter with Command Prompt.

Open Command Prompt as admin
Run the diskpart command

In your cmd window, run Disk Management command diskpart by typing it and pressing “Enter”
Run “list volume”

Now that the Disk Management Command is running, type list volume and press “Enter” to get a list of all your drives and their letters. Note the number next to the one you want to change.
Select the volume

Type select volume x, replacing x with the number you noted down in the previous step.
How to change the drive letter in CMD

Now that the disk is selected, you can assign a drive letter with the following command:

assign letter=x

Unless you want the drive to assigned to X:, change the above letter to one that makes sense to you.

If you get an error indicating that it’s not available, repeat the command with a different letter.

How to Change Drive Letter in Windows 10 with a PowerShell Disk Management Command

Those more familiar with PowerShell can use this method instead to achieve the same result.

Open PowerShell

Press “Windows + X”, then click “Windows PowerShell (Administrator)” to open it.
List your drives

In PowerShell, type Get-Partition and press “Enter”.
Note down the drive letter you want to change
Assign a drive letter via PowerShell command

Remembering the letter you noted down earlier, type:

Get-Partition -DriveLetter x | Set-Partition -NewDriveLetter y

Replace x with the drive letter you want to change, and y with what you want it changed to.

How to Change / Assign a Drive Letter via the Registry Editor

Alternatively, if none of the above methods worked or you’re just feeling brave, you can modify the drive letter via the registry. Just be sure to read our safe registry editing guide first.

Open the registry editor

Press the “Windows” key, type “Registry editor” and click on the top result.
Navigate to the “MountedDevices” key

In the left-sidebar, navigate to “SYSTEM > MountedDevices” or paste the following in your address bar:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
Note the drive you want to change

The MountedDevices key will contain entries for all of your drives, with the format \DosDevices\X:. Find the one you want to change.
Rename the registry entry

Right-click the drive you want to change and choose “Rename”.
Change the drive letter in Windows 10 to one of your choosing

Edit the final part of the name, after the \ to a letter of your choosing, followed by :. Do not delete \DosDevices\ or you may cause issues. Sign in and out of the PC to apply the changes.