Unable to assign letter to drive

[TMac53]

I am trying to assign my HDD a drive letter. The tutorials I've seen on how to do it state that you go to disk management and right click on the drive you want to assign, then click on "change drive letter and paths." However, when I do that it won't let me click on it. The option is there, but it is grayed out, along with the rest of the options besides "help." Anybody know what this is?

[Skiiwee29]

You first have to format the drive so it is unable by Windows. Once you format it, Windows will automatically assign the next level available. If you want to change that drive letter then, this is when you will do it. 

[TMac53]

16 minutes ago, legacy99 said:

You first have to format the drive so it is unable by Windows. Once you format it, Windows will automatically assign the next level available. If you want to change that drive letter then, this is when you will do it. 

It's not letting me format though either. Like I said, all the options available when right clicking the drive show up, but they are grayed out except for "help," which is black and clickable.

[Rohime]

2 minutes ago, TMac53 said:

It's not letting me format though either. Like I said, all the options available when right clicking the drive show up, but they are grayed out except for "help," which is black and clickable.

can you post image of the pop up or tell us what options are available?  the drive must be in a unusual state... one fo the options will probably indicate the issue

[TMac53]

Here it is

[Rohime]

Ok, so the problem is that you've got a protected partition for some reason.

Have you been playing around with Mac formats or other special partitioning configurations?

While the partition is protected you wont be able to do much with it.

 

if you know that you don't want the data on the disk, then you could delete the partition and rebuild a replacement one in the same space.   UNfortunately you need to use the command line tools to do that, the GUI tools wont do it.

 

Try this:  

http://www.tech-faq.com/gpt-protective-partition.html

 

http://www.howtogeek.com/215349/how-to-remove-an-efi-system-partition-or-gpt-protective-partition-from-a-drive-in-windows/

 

 

[TMac53]

2 minutes ago, Rohime said:

Ok, so the problem is that you've got a protected partition for some reason.

Have you been playing around with Mac formats or other special partitioning configurations?

While the partition is protected you wont be able to do much with it.

 

if you know that you don't want the data on the disk, then you could delete the partition and rebuild a replacement one in the same space.   UNfortunately you need to use the command line tools to do that, the GUI tools wont do it.

 

Try this:  

http://www.tech-faq.com/gpt-protective-partition.html

 

http://www.howtogeek.com/215349/how-to-remove-an-efi-system-partition-or-gpt-protective-partition-from-a-drive-in-windows/

 

 

No I haven't been doing anything like that. I set the hard drive up, initialized it, and selected the GPT partition. I'll look at the links you sent and see if that helps at all. Thanks

[Rohime]

1 minute ago, TMac53 said:

No I haven't been doing anything like that. I set the hard drive up, initialized it, and selected the GPT partition. I'll look at the links you sent and see if that helps at all. Thanks

Be really really careful deleting it.  The Diskpart command line is unforgiving if you point it at the wrong drive.

[TMac53]

Well I got to the point of deleting it, then this message showed up

[Rohime]

42 minutes ago, TMac53 said:

Well I got to the point of deleting it, then this message showed up

OK, so its starting to look like the drive may be faulty.

Do you have any more specific errors in the event log?

 

Start search type eventvwr and hit enter. In the viewer window's left pane click on Windows Logs to expand it the click System. The log will appear in the center pane. You'll be looking for RED circles for Errors and Critical. There will probably be several, all systems have them.  -- but you want ones from the same time as you ran the clean command.  If you click one the details will be at the bottom. Use the Details and General tabs to find out more

[Rohime]

One other thing that might be worth trying is to change the controller that the drive is plugged into.

ie: reopen the case and find a different sata port (ideally one from a different block, not the one next to it).

depending on the mobo this might be a different IO controller.   Make sure the cable is installed / firmly seated at both ends.

[TMac53]

2 hours ago, Rohime said:

OK, so its starting to look like the drive may be faulty.

Do you have any more specific errors in the event log?

 

Start search type eventvwr and hit enter. In the viewer window's left pane click on Windows Logs to expand it the click System. The log will appear in the center pane. You'll be looking for RED circles for Errors and Critical. There will probably be several, all systems have them.  -- but you want ones from the same time as you ran the clean command.  If you click one the details will be at the bottom. Use the Details and General tabs to find out more

So I just checked the event viewer, and there were a bunch of "warning" signs, but no "error" signs around that time that I ran the command prompt admin. I'll try switching it to a different SATA port and see if that works.

[TMac53]

Ok so I moved the SATA cable for the drive to a different port, and that seemed to I guess reset the drive and make it unallocated and not initialized. When I try to initialize it to MBR, I get the error message saying: data error (cyclic redundancy check). When I try to initialize it with the GPT partition I get the same message. Also something to note, when I went into the BIOS and go to storage, my SSD (which is what I am running Windows off of) and my optical drive show up in my SATA ports. But my HDD does not. Any ideas?