Solved: D Drive Not Showing up in Windows 10, 11

Why D drive is not showing up in Windows 10/11?

The D drive not showing up isn’t a rare issue that Windows users face. People would discover that not only the D drive, but also the local disk E/F drive, are missing. In general, users install the OS on the C drive, store third-party apps and personal data on the D drive or other drives. So, it will be quite inconvenient if the missing disks result in data loss.

In fact, there are some reasons that may lead D drive missing in Windows 10/11:

▶ D drive missing after Windows update
This might be the most possible reason that makes your D drive disappear. Windows update might cause files missing, and sometimes the update may be changed by some update procedures.

▶ Removable devices occupy the drive letter
When you insert a CD/DVD/USB to install the system or do other tasks, the drive letter D may be assigned to that removable device, particularly a CD-ROM drive, which is frequently assigned the D letter by default.

▶ D drive was inadvertently formatted or deleted
When you do operations on partitions or hard drives, such as increasing partition size or reformatting a disk, the associated drives are in danger of disappearing if you make mistakes.

How to fix D drive not showing up in Windows 10/11

Now, let’s move to the solutions to find your missing D drive back.

1. Update driver in Device Manager

Step 1. Type “Device Manager” in the search box and select the search result.

Step 2. Please find the “Disk drives” and click it.

Step 3. Right-click the listed disk in the “Disk drives” category and then right-click the drive and choose the “Update driver”

Step 4. Select “Search automatically for updated driver software”.

2. Unhide D drive in Local Group Policy Editor

Step 1. Press “Windows” + “R” simultaneously and type “gpedit.msc” in the Run dialogue box and then click the “OK” button to open Local Group Policy Editor.

Step 2. In the Local Group Policy Editor window, find the path:

User Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/File Explorer

Find the “Hide these specified drives in My Computer” option on the right side, and right-click it.

Step 4. Select “Not Configured” and then click “Apply” > “OK” to save the change.

3. Restore missing D drive with a professional tool

For users who accidentally format or delete D drive, this solution will show how to restore the D drive in Windows 10.

In fact, you only need to use a professional restore application to recover the deleted drive. AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional supports Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP system (Server users can choose the Server Edition) to recover lost partitions with simple operations.

The “Partition Recovery Wizard” feature can restore partitions that were accidentally wiped or damaged due to hardware/software failure, virus attack, or other inexplicable causes, as long as they were not overwritten after deletion.

Step 1. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant. Select "Recover" > "Partition Recovery" on the main interface.

Step 2. Select the disk where the D drive original was.

Step 3. Select "Fast Search" (recommended, less time). If the drive is not found, try Full Search.

Step 4. Select the drive and click "Proceed" to start recovering. When it is completed, click "Finish".

Check if the D drive not showing up in File Explorer/Disk Management has been fixed.

4. Reassign letter to the missing D drive

If the removable device takes up the D letter, we can reassign the original D drive.

Step 1. Open Disk Management.

Step 2. Check the CD/DVD drive in Disk Management if the drive letter of it is D. If the drive letter of the CD/DVD drive is D, perform the following steps.

Step 3. Right-click the CD drive and then choose “Change Drive Letter and Paths…”

Step 4. Click “Change”, then choose another letter for your CD or DVD drive from the menu, and click “OK”.

Step 5. Click “Yes” in the prompt.

Final lines

With the 4 solutions, we list in this post for D drive not showing up in Windows 10, you can retrieve your D drive quickly. AOMEI Partition Assistant is an all-around disk & partition manager for Windows systems, it can clone disk/partition, restore lost data, change file system without damaging data, migrate OS to another disk…