After assigning drive letter to USB drive it cannot be restored to original state.

Question

Have been using a USB thumb drive such that it is almost constantly connected to a particular Windows 10 computer. This usage made it desirable to permanently assign a drive letter (in this case X:) to the drive. Now it is desired to replace that drive with another one that takes over use of the drive letter (X:). As a result, I opted to perform the "Remove" operation of the "Change Drive Letter ..." action using "Disk Management". That did remove the drive letter but it has had the affect of NOT allowing that, now repurposed drive, to be assigned a drive letter in the conventional manner used by Windows. By conventional manner I'm referring to the concept of dynamically assigning an available drive letter when it is connected to the USB port. It now appears as though the only way to use it is to permanently assign some other drive letter.

Is there a way to restore the drive in question to normal?

Answer 1

@Snookred
Hi,
Open the command prompt as administrator and follow below mentioned steps. Check if the “hidden” and “do not assign a drive letter” attributes are set for the partition on the USB drive.

1. List the disks: list disk
2. Find the disk number assigned to your USB flash drive and select disk (number).
3. List the partitions on the disk: list part
4. Select the desired partition: select partition
5. Check the partition attributes: attributes volume
6. Disable these attributes with commands:
   attributes volume clear NoDefaultDriveLetter
   attributes volume clear hidden
7. Volume attributes will clear successfully
8. End the diskpart session by typing: Exit
9. Restart your and check USB drive should automatically be assigned a drive letter on your computer.

Hope above information can help you.

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Answer 2

Open start and search for feedback and open the Feedback Hub app and report this issue.

Answer 3

Sorry for delay in responding. Since this disk was replaced it is NOT as vital as previously.

Regarding JennyFeng suggestions refer to the following:

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19041.928]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.19041.610

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: NEPTUNE

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt

---

Disk 0 Online 238 GB 3072 KB *
Disk 1 Online 931 GB 291 GB *
Disk 2 Online 59 GB 15 MB
Disk 3 Online 115 GB 14 MB

DISKPART> select disk 3

Disk 3 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list part

Partition ### Type Size Offset

---

Partition 1 Primary 115 GB 15 MB

DISKPART> sel part 1

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> att vol
Read-only : No
Hidden : No
No Default Drive Letter: No
Shadow Copy : No

DISKPART> list vol

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info

---

Volume 0 Z DVD-ROM 0 B No Media
Volume 1 P2Win10H NTFS Partition 78 GB Healthy
Volume 2 P3Win10G NTFS Partition 78 GB Healthy
Volume 3 C P4Win10E NTFS Partition 78 GB Healthy Boot
Volume 4 NTFS Partition 524 MB Healthy Hidden
Volume 5 NTFS Partition 530 MB Healthy Hidden
Volume 6 NTFS Partition 522 MB Healthy Hidden
Volume 7 T TempData NTFS Partition 60 GB Healthy Pagefile
Volume 8 W WorkData NTFS Partition 500 GB Healthy
Volume 9 D0Win10A NTFS Partition 80 GB Healthy
Volume 10 DISK0BOOT FAT32 Partition 240 MB Healthy System
Volume 11 PortApps NTFS Removable 59 GB Healthy
W:\$AppsPort\
* Volume 12 KINGSTON NTFS Removable 115 GB Healthy

DISKPART>