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How to Assign a Drive Letter to a USB Drive

Learn how to assign a drive letter to a USB drive in Windows XP so that "My Computer" will recognize it. Instructions Difficulty: Moderately Easy Things You'll Need Computer USB Drive USB Port on the Computer Steps 1 Step One Click the Start button. 2 Step Two Right Click My Computer. 3 Step Three Click Manage. 4 Step Four  Click to enlarge

Computer Management Window

The screen is divided into 3 sections. On the left you have Computer Management for your machine, on the right the screen is sectioned into 2 sections; the top contains the information about the hard drive (Disk 0), the USB drive and the CD-ROM 0 (DVD G:).

Click on Disk Management. Which is on the left.

We are concerned about being able to change the USB Drive letter. In this case, the drive letter is F:, but we could change it to something else such as K:. 5 Step Five  Click to enlarge

Change Drive Letter and Path

Right click anywhere on the bottom portion of the Computer Management Window screen that represents the USB drive (F:) and click on change drive letter and path. 6 Step Six  Click to enlarge

Change Drive Letter and Paths Window

This will open the following window: "Change Drive Letter and Paths". Click Change. 7 Step Seven  Click to enlarge

Change Drive Letter or Path

Make sure the radio button “Assign the following drive letter is chosen”, to the right of this is a drop down box with drive letters currently not assigned to any drives on your local system. 8 Step Eight READ THIS PART IF YOU ARE ON A NETWORK. If YOU ARE NOT ON A NETWORK PLEASE SKIP TO STEP 9. If you are on a network and have mapped network drives that have an assigned letter, they will appear to be available, when in fact they are not. When you choose an apparently available letter, a warning box will come up with an error saying that you can not use that letter, just choose a different letter until you have a good one that is not in use. 9 Step Nine  Click to enlarge

Confirm Box

Once you have chosen the letter for your USB drive, click Ok. A Comfirm Box will come up, click Yes. 10 Step Ten  Click to enlarge

USB Drive letter is now K:

You have now changed the drive letter to your USB drive to K:.