Fix: Windows 11 Unable to Assign Drive Letter

Windows 11, like any of its older versions, is supposed to assign drive letters automatically to both its internal and external storage devices. The purpose of assigning drive letters is to give a unique indication. This further helps the Storage partition in identifying the USB devices that you connect to your PC. However, as several users have come up, Windows 11 is unable to assign driver letters. And as a result, the said device neither appears in File Explorer nor anywhere else in the system.

How to Fix When “Windows 11 Unable to Assign Drive Letter”?

Fortunately, the issue is not that serious, and there are few solutions to resolve it. Today, this article is all about what users can do when “Windows 11 Unable to Assign Drive Letter” in their system. And with that said, let’s straight jump into the solution for the same. Have a look:

FIX 1: Restart Virtual Disk Service

Virtual Disk Service is responsible for managing several functions in your Operating system, of which one includes assigning driver letters. Now, if this Service meets any malfunctioning or glitch, it leads to several internal system issues. Hence, consider restarting the Virtual disk service and check whether it helps or not.

Firstly, launch the RUN dialogue box by pressing Windows + R altogether.
Now inside the empty text box, type services.msc and then click on OK.
Now inside the Service window, scroll through the list of options and locate Virtual Disk.
Now double-click upon it and select the option Properties.
Further at the Startup type section, open the drop-down menu and select Automatic.
Now click on the Start tab under the Service section. Even if the Service is already running, stop and re-run it again.
Further, click on Apply -> OK.
Now check the said issue resolved or not.

Users who are unable to Start/Stop the Virtual Disk Service can follow these steps mentioned below:

For that, navigate to the Windows search bar, type ‘cmd’, and launch the Command Prompt window. Make sure you launch it with admin access.
Now inside the Command Prompt window, type ‘sc query vds’ and then press Enter.
If the above command appears as STOPPED, then use the following command and then press Enter,

Net start vds

Lastly, restart your computer and check whether it helped or not.

FIX 2: Disable Drive Hidden Attributes

The “Windows 11 Unable to Assign Drive Letter” issue occurs if the Hidden or No default drive letter attributes are activated in your system. To resolve this, the simplest solution is to disable the same and then check for improvement. Here’s how you can do the same:

Navigate to the Windows search bar, type ‘cmd’, and launch the Command Prompt window. Make sure you launch it with admin access.
Now inside the Command Prompt window, type ‘diskpart’ and then press Enter.

Note: Make sure your storage device is connected.

Further, type ‘list disk’ and then press Enter again.
Further, copy the disk number given right next to the connected device.
Now type, the following command prompt, and press Enter.

select disk <DiskNumber>

Here <DiskNumber> is the value that you got from the list disk column.
Now type the following command to list out all the partitions and then press Enter

last part

Here copy the value of the biggest partition.
Further, type the following command to choose that partition and then press Enter.

select partition <PartitionNumber>

Here, make sure you replace the Partition number with the value you got from the list part command.
Now type the following command and press Enter to choose all the attributes of the chosen partition,

attributes volume

Here is for Hidden and No default driver letters you see a Yes, then use the following command for disabling them both:

attributes volume clear hidden

attributes volume clear nodefaultdriveletter

Make sure you press Enter after each of them.
Now type the command ‘exit’ to close the Diskpart.
Lastly, close the Command Prompt window and check for improvement.

FIX 3: Enable Auto-Mount

According to a few suffering users, once they enabled Auto-Mount, the “Windows 11 Unable to Assign Drive Letter” issue got resolved for them. You can also try the same and check whether it helps or not. For doing so, follow the steps given below:

Navigate to the Windows search bar, type ‘cmd’, and launch the Command Prompt window. Make sure you launch it with admin access.
Now inside the Command Prompt window, type ‘diskpart’ and press Enter.
Now type ‘automount’, press Enter, and check the automount status.
If you see it as disabled, type ‘automount enable’, press Enter, and enable the automount feature.
After that, type ‘exit’, press Enter, and close the Disk partition.
At last, check for improvement.

FIX 4: Assign Disk Letters in Windows 11 Manually

While none of the methods above help you, at last, you can try manually assigning Disk Letters in Windows 11. For doing so, follow the process elaborated below:

Firstly, connect your device to the PC.
Now launch the RUN dialogue box by pressing Windows + R altogether.
Now inside the empty text box, type ‘diskmgmt.msc’ and click on OK. It will launch the Disk Management Tool.
On the left-pane menu, locate your device below the Volume column, right-click over it and choose the option Change Drive Letter and Paths from the sub-menu.
On the prompt, click on Add and then further select Assign the following drive letter.
Now open the drop-down, select the desired Letter, and click on OK.

And this is how you can assign letters to drive.

This was all for assigning the drive letters. If you are also experiencing the Windows 11 Unable to Assign Drive Letter issue, the above information will definitely help you.

Follow the simplest methods above without spending much time or effort. In the end, we hope that one or the other fixes will surely help you in getting done with the issue. If you have any queries or feedback, please write down a comment in the below comment box.