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I have a correctly formatted (Master Boot Record, FAT32) 500 GB SATA 2.5 inch drive in an external hard drive enclosure, connected by USB chord.

This drive automatically mounts flawlessly to my Ubuntu laptop, but when plugged into my Windows 10 laptop, it only registers the presence of a USB device that can be "safely removed," it doesn't assign a drive letter.

This is terribly inconvenient, as you might imagine.

How do I figure out if this is possible, and if it is, how do I fix it?

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4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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That sounds like a volume flag is set. Try this procedure to let Windows assign a letter automatically.
1. Open a CMD prompt with Administrator previlege.
2. Type in DiskPart and hit Enter.
3. Run the following commands one by one. Case insensitive.

List Disk

Identify your external drive from the given list manually. Assume it's disk # (a number), and run

Select Disk #
Select Partition 1
Attribute Volume Clear NoDefaultDriveLetter

Done. Now on every Windows system it should be assigned with a letter automatically and show up in Explorer.

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  • Yep, the DiskPart is a great utility, only needs a very carful handling. But does it exist under Win 10? technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766465(v=ws.10).aspx
    – Ale..chenski
    Commented Feb 1, 2017 at 23:35
  • Why do you think it doesn't exist in Win10??? It's ever been there since WinXP (or even earlier!). It's a command-line utility, which means it has no GUI.
    – iBug
    Commented Feb 2, 2017 at 2:46
  • just asking... utilities may come and go. Search is gone. Webcam is gone. It is not a given that a vending kiosk as W10 has any utilities.
    – Ale..chenski
    Commented Feb 2, 2017 at 3:03
  • System utilities never go. Like servicing sc.exe, Net Shell netsh.exe, Net User net.exe and Task Scheduler sched.exe (previously at.exe).
    – iBug
    Commented Feb 2, 2017 at 3:09
  • This worked for me, except I had to do list volume then select volume #, otherwise the attribute command would return "No volume selected."
    – McGuireV10
    Commented Aug 29, 2017 at 15:07
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This issue drove me wild for half a year. I tried everything including the answer above, which was close but didn't resolve it. In the end it turned out to be that the volume was marked hidden. This is how I resolved the issue:

  1. Click the start menu or press the windows key
  2. Type diskpart and press the enter key
  3. Click yes in the dialog that pops up
  4. Type list volume into the diskpart window and press the enter key
  5. Identify the volume that is causing the issue and note the volume number

  6. Type the following into the diskpart window (replace X with the volume number from the previous step):

    select volume X
attributes volume

  7. If the hidden attribute is yes then this is your problem. Simply type:

    attributes volume clear hidden

  8. Then press the enter key and windows should automatically assign a drive letter.

  9. If it doesn't it might be that automount is disabled or stuck you can try fixing that with:

    automount disable
automount enable
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  • Thanks, I've solved the problems using automount disable and then automount enable
    – drypatrick
    Commented Sep 6, 2023 at 7:41
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Just to add to kaan_a's answer:

With Windows 10 DiskPart, when you execute

List Volume

A table will appear and show as "INFO". This will show the status of the volume and, in the example attached, which happened to me, it showed as "Hidden".

EXAMPLE

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The USB I connected shows up as NOT hidden in DiskPart, but with no drive letter assigned. When I click the USB icon in the system tray (flash drive icon) there are no options to do anything with it, and File Exploder does not list it.

When I use diskpart to Attribute Volume Clear NoDefaultDriveLetter, I get "operation is not supported on removable media". I started diskpart as administrator so that shouldn't be an issue.

Also, the same USB acts the same in other computers too. No drive letter. Not seen in File Exploder.

I'm running with W10 22H2.

And I appear to have just solved my issue with it.

I used diskmgmt to assign it drive letter R, and it showed up in File Explorer right away. (Right-click the drive in the upper pane is where you find that.)

I put it into another laptop and it showed up as drive letter E.

I still don't know why I got "operation is not supported on removable media."

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