Cannot Change Drive Letter

Anonymous
2009-04-24T12:33:27+00:00

Vita 64 Ultimate. I have an external eSATA unit for backups. Recently got SSD for second drive in my laptop. After formatting, Vista assigned the SSD drive F: which had been being used by the external drive.  Disk Management->Change Drive Letter and Paths->Change Drive Letter returns a Logical Disk Manager error message saying Parameter is Incorrect.  Removing the drive letter appears to work, but rescanning or refreshing Disk Manager causess the letter to reappear.  I need to swap these drive letters.  Can you assist?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

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Anonymous
2010-11-17T01:46:44+00:00

ACTUALLY I got it to work, finally.  I am not technical.  So just use minitool partition wizard, found here:

http://download.cnet.com/Partition-Wizard-Home-Edition/3000-2094\_4-10962200.html?tag=mncol;6

  1. open the program, right-click on the drive you want to change
  2. select "change letter"
  3. click the drop down box by "new drive letter"
  4. select the letter you want to change it to
  5. click "ok"
  6. at the bottom left corner of the program click "apply"

and that's how you do it

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Anonymous
2009-04-25T01:17:05+00:00

Hello kd4wat,

 Thank you for your reply!

 The error "Parameter is Incorrect" is an indication that the drive is in use.  I have added some steps below that I hope will correct your issue.  Please let me know status.

To change the drive letter or paths in Windows Vista, just follow these simple steps:

  1. Right click on Computer and select Manage to open and access Computer Management Console.
  2. Navigate to and expand the Storage section, and click on Disk Management to access Disk Management Console.
  3. Disk Management Console display the details of all available volumes and disk drives in the computer configuration in the right pane.
  4. Right click on the volume or disk drive that you want to change the drive letter, and select “Change Drive Letter and Paths).
  5. Then click on “Change” button.
  6. Use the drop down list to select the new and your desired drive letter to assign to the disk volume.
  7. Click OK.
  8. Click Yes to confirm.

Any letter between C and Z can be assigned to a hard disk drive, CD drive, DVD drive, portable external hard disk drive, or USB flash memory key drive, while floppy disk drives use up letters A and B. Beside, the drive letter for the system volume or boot partition cannot be modified or changed. And if you install some applications or programs in the drive that you have just changed the drive letter, they may not functioning properly after the change due to the possibilities that the programs will also refer to the specific drive letter or original path used when installation as environmental variables.

James Microsoft Answers Support Engineer Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-01-31T16:42:06+00:00

    FINALLY - somebody understood the question and had the knowledge to answer correctly...and even understood that some of us would miss the SET Button.  THANKS!

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-06-28T19:09:35+00:00

    Hi,

    I recently encountered this issue with my windows 7 64-bit machine.  It usually occurs when the drive is in use... In my case i set up the drive that i wanted to change the drive letter to be used as page file.  I disabled page file on that drive and was able to change the drive letter without having the "parameter is incorrect" error message.  To check this, go to advanced system settings (right click on my computer and click properties. You will see it on the left panel) under performance click on settings.On the performance options window, got to advanced tab and click on change button. Vitual memory window will appear and from there you can see if there is paging file assigned to the drive that you want to change the drive letter.  If there is, click on that drive and select "No paging file", click set and ok.  You need to restart your computer for the changes to take effect then you can easily change the drive letter.

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