How to Fix Windows 11 Disk Management Cannot Assign Drive Letter

Error: Windows 11 Disk Management cannot assign drive letter

Why Windows 11 Disk Management cannot assign drive letter?

Windows 11 Disk Management is a built-in tool for Windows 11 that has the ability to help users with common disk problems, including delete volume, format volume, extend/shrink volume, mark partition as active, add mirror, etc. 

However, sometimes this tool also fails to complete some tasks, like "Change Drive Letter and Paths" greyed out. Why users cannot assign drive letter with Disk Management? We found two most common reasons:

◐ File system: When the file system of the target partition is not FAT or NTFS, the partition cannot be compatible with the Windows system, and the user will fail to change the drive letter.
◐ The target drive is write-protected: When the target drive is write-protected, it's set to "read-only", so the users cannot successfully assign this drive letter.

How to get out of the "swamp" that Disk Management can't assign drive letter? In the following content, we will propose solutions according to the above two reasons.

2 methods: Solve Windows 11 Disk Management cannot assign drive letter

When Disk Management Assign Drive Letter greyed out, we can take the following two measures to solve the problem in a targeted manner.

│Method 1. Format the target partition using Disk Management

Since Windows only supports FAT32 and NTFS, so we can format the target drive to FAT32 or NTFS. Please refer to the following content.

Note:
✍ If you want to use the SD card on smart TVs or projectors, you should choose FAT 32; if the target drive is an internal computer drive, you'd better select NTFS.
✍ Once your hard drive is formatted, all data on it will be deleted.

Step 1. Right-click "This PC" on the desktop and select "Manage". In the pop-up window, select "Disk Management" under the "Storage" option on the left.

Step 2. Right-click the target drive, click "Format".

Step 3. In the new window set the "Volume Label", "File system" and "Allocation unit size", then click "OK".

│Method 2. Use Diskpart to remove write protection

The target disk has been write-protected is another main reason for Windows 11 Disk Management cannot assign drive letter. When the target disk is write-protected, we must remove write protection from the drive, beacause we cannot make any changes to it. Here, we will describe in detail how to use Diskpart to remove the read-only.

Step 1. Press "Windows + R", then type "diskpart" in the "Run" window and press "Enter".

Step 2. Type the following commands and press "Enter" after each command.

• list disk (All disks in the computer will be listed.)
• select disk n ("n" refers to the number of the target drive.)
• attributes disk clear readonly

Step 3. After successfully removing write protection, you can type "exit" and press "Enter" to leave Diskpart.

An easier way to solve Disk Management cannot assign drive letter 

How to deal with Windows 11 Disk Management cannot assign drive letter? Although we can format the target drive or remove the write protection, here we would like to recommend a simpler and more convenient disk managing freeware - AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard.

Even if the target disk is not NTFS/FAT or write-protected, this powerful software can help you assign a drive letter permanently. Just click "Change Drive Letter" and follow the wizard carefully, you can easily change the drive letter with a few steps in a clear interface.

More pleasingly, this freeware not only has the ability to change the drive letter, but also can help you wipe hard drive, resize partition, merge partitions, etc.

Let's see how it work on assigning drive letter.

Warning: If the target drive is a system drive, you will be failed to change the drive letter of it. 

Step 1. Download and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. Right-click the target drive, then  click "Advanced" and "Change Drive Letter". 

Step 2. In the ejected window, select a new drive letter from M to Z according to your need.

Step 3. Click "Apply" and "Proceed" in turn to realize this setting.

Note: After successfully changing the drive letter, you can also use the "Check Partition" function, checking whether there are other errors in the target disk to ensure its normal use.

Summary

How to Fix Windows 11 Disk Management cannot assign drive letter? In this article, we analyzed the main causes of this problem and provided solutions for the problems. In addition, we also introduced a more efficient disk managing freeware to help you assign drive letters quickly and safely.

By the way, if you want to try more advanced features, including Migrate OS to SSD, Move Applications to another drive, Allocate free space, etc, please go to the Professional Version of  the AOMEI Partition Assistant.