Cannot assign drive letter to my hard drive in Disk Management

[NovaGear G2]

Can someone help me? For some reason I can't assign a drive letter to my external hard drive and I can't see it in File Explorer. I also can't see it in File Explorer.

 

[Himommies]

Do it in file explorer

[PorkishPig]

4 minutes ago, NovaGear G2 said:

Can someone help me? For some reason I can't assign a drive letter to my external hard drive and I can't see it in File Explorer.

 

Looks to me that the drive you are trying to assign a letter to is not formatted with NTFS. Try reformatting that drive in File Explorer as NTFS or ExFAT if you are using it on both Mac and Windows.

[NovaGear G2]

Just now, Himommies said:

Do it in file explorer

I can't see the drive in file explorer, I think it might be because it doesn't have a drive letter. That's why I'm trying to do it in Disk Management. Sorry I didn't specify it in the post, I'll edit it so that it does.

 

[NovaGear G2]

1 minute ago, Homeless_Pineapple said:

Looks to me that the drive you are trying to assign a letter to is not formatted with NTFS. Try reformatting that drive in File Explorer as NTFS or ExFAT if you are using it on both Mac and Windows.

I can't see the drive in file explorer.

[Gungpae]

1 minute ago, NovaGear G2 said:

I can't see the drive in file explorer, I think it might be because it doesn't have a drive letter. That's why I'm trying to do it in Disk Management. Sorry I didn't specify it in the post, I'll edit it so that it does.

 

You want to either format it through disk manager or format it using diskpart

http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/005929en

[unknownmiscreant]

Just now, NovaGear G2 said:

I can't see the drive in file explorer.

Drives don't show up in file explorer without drive letters.

 

Try using the command line utility diskpart.

 

[KenjiUmino]

1 minute ago, Homeless_Pineapple said:

Looks to me that the drive you are trying to assign a letter to is not formatted with NTFS. Try reformatting that drive in File Explorer as NTFS or ExFAT if you are using it on both Mac and Windows.

i was about to write the same thing - it looks like the primary partition of the drive isn't even formatted - have you used this drive in the past ?

[unknownmiscreant]

Just now, KenjiUmino said:

i was about to write the same thing - it looks like the primary partition of the drive isn't even formatted - have you used this drive in the past ?

Yeah, looks like it might be an old OS drive. If nothing important is on the drive, try use the 'clean' command from within diskpart.

[NovaGear G2]

18 minutes ago, KenjiUmino said:

i was about to write the same thing - it looks like the primary partition of the drive isn't even formatted - have you used this drive in the past ?

No

[unknownmiscreant]

7 minutes ago, NovaGear G2 said:

No

Just use the clean command in diskpart. That will remove everything on the disk.

[NovaGear G2]

Just now, unknownmiscreant said:

Just use the clean command in diskpart. That will remove everything on the disk.

I just found out that there are stuff on the disk I need. 

[unknownmiscreant]

5 minutes ago, NovaGear G2 said:

I just found out that there are stuff on the disk I need. 

 

Ahh, well that makes it harder. Have you tried assigning the drive letter from command line.

 

If that fails, try set the partition id to 07. then try the drive letter assignment again.

[NovaGear G2]

Just now, unknownmiscreant said:

 

Ahh, well that makes it harder. Have you tried assigning the drive letter from command line.

 

If that fails, try set the partition id to 07. then try the drive letter assignment again.

I'm in the middle of doing it in the command line but when I go to list volumes, I matched the drives from disk management and the list of volumes in the command prompt and the drive I'm looking for is not appearing in the list of volumes in the command prompt. 

[unknownmiscreant]

4 minutes ago, NovaGear G2 said:

I'm in the middle of doing it in the command line but when I go to list volumes, I matched the drives from disk management and the list of volumes in the command prompt and the drive I'm looking for is not appearing in the list of volumes in the command prompt. 

Listing the volumes in diskpart does not list all off the partitions created on the disk. Some hidden partitions are not displayed.

What you need to do is first select the disk "select disk [number here]" ==> "list partition" ==> "select partition {number]"

 

Then assign the partition id 07 and then a drive letter.

 

For your case, the commands will be:

list disk

select disk 1 (double check this number)

list partition

select partition 1 (same for this one, im going off your screenshots)

set id=07 override

assign letter=g (some free letter, doesn't matter what) 

 

[PorkishPig]

15 minutes ago, NovaGear G2 said:

I'm in the middle of doing it in the command line but when I go to list volumes, I matched the drives from disk management and the list of volumes in the command prompt and the drive I'm looking for is not appearing in the list of volumes in the command prompt. 

 

If all else fails, I would suggest that you use a computer with OSX or any other Linux distro to transfer the files from the drive, and then format to exFAT. Alternatively, you can give EaseUS's Partition Master a try, though I personally dislike their software. It acts more as a visual interface for Windows diskpart. You can grab a copy from http://www.partition-tool.com/.

[NovaGear G2]

5 minutes ago, unknownmiscreant said:

Listing the volumes in diskpart does not list all off the partitions created on the disk. Some hidden partitions are not displayed.

What you need to do is first select the disk "select disk [number here]" ==> "list partition" ==> "select partition {number]"

 

Then assign the partition id 07 and then a drive letter.

 

For your case, the commands will be:

list disk

select disk 1 (double check this number)

list partition

select partition 1 (same for this one, im going off your screenshots)

set id=07 override

assign letter=g (some free letter, doesn't matter what) 

 

Every time I try typing in set id=07 override I get this

[NovaGear G2]

4 minutes ago, Homeless_Pineapple said:

If all else fails, I would suggest that you use a computer with OSX or any other Linux distro to transfer the files from the drive, and then format to exFAT. Alternatively, you can give EaseUS's Partition Master a try, though I personally dislike their software. It acts more as a visual interface for Windows diskpart. You can grab a copy from http://www.partition-tool.com/.

I actually have a Macbook right next to me to,  just in case the command prompt method fails.

[unknownmiscreant]

3 minutes ago, NovaGear G2 said:

Every time I try typing in set id=07 override I get this

Strange, that used to work. It doesn't work for me either, despite it being exactly the same command as in one of the examples in the help section of the command.

[NovaGear G2]

2 minutes ago, unknownmiscreant said:

Strange, that used to work. It doesn't work for me either, despite it being exactly the same command as in one of the examples in the help section of the command.

I completely skipped that step and tried to assign the letter and it assigned the EFI a letter. This is what I have so far.

[unknownmiscreant]

39 minutes ago, NovaGear G2 said:

I completely skipped that step and tried to assign the letter and it assigned the EFI a letter. This is what I have so far.

There isn't alot more I can do remotely, but it looks like you need to get the id of the partition set to 07 somehow.

[NovaGear G2]

3 minutes ago, unknownmiscreant said:

There isn't alot more I can do remotely, but it looks like you need to get the id of the partition set to 07 somehow.

I see okay. Thanks. If the diskpart thing doesn't work, I'm going to try and see if I can format via my father's MacBook.

[unknownmiscreant]

3 minutes ago, NovaGear G2 said:

I see okay. Thanks. If the diskpart thing doesn't work, I'm going to try and see if I can format via my father's MacBook.

You should be able to format it within windows, but I thought you said there was data you needed to keep.

[NovaGear G2]

1 hour ago, unknownmiscreant said:

You should be able to format it within windows, but I thought you said there was data you needed to keep.

I have an extra hard drive, one from a previous post. It can only be read on my parents' Macbooks no matter what so, I'm moving all of my data to that drive and format the one I want which will erase all data on it. When all is done, I'll put everything back onto the final drive that I'll be using.

[unknownmiscreant]

11 minutes ago, NovaGear G2 said:

I have an extra hard drive, one from a previous post. It can only be read on my parents' Macbooks no matter what so, I'm moving all of my data to that drive and format the one I want which will erase all data on it. When all is done, I'll put everything back onto the final drive that I'll be using.

Sounds like a plan. Was the drive you are using originally in a mac? as macs use different file systems to windows, so the two are incompatible.