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    Windows 10 Not Assigning Drive Letters to External Drives Automatically

    Townsville Nerds External Hard Drive

    With every Windows 10 update there are a lot of improvements. Not just features, but also little bug which annoy people. But for someone reason this little persistent one keeps sticking around.

    Usually it just works. You plug your external USB or hard drive into your computer and Windows 10 automatically makes it show up in your computer with a drive letter like “D:” assigned to it.

    But what do you do when it doesn’t and the drive it working perfectly fine?

    It could simply be that Windows is not assigning your device a drive letter, specially if you hear it make a notification sound when you plug it in, your drive is working fine and you can see your external drive with all your data on it powering up.

     

    How to make Windows 10 assign drive letters automatically to external drives again

    The service which makes all this magic happen running in the background of your computer is called VDS (Virtual Disk Service).

    First, make sure it is running by typing the command, “sc query vds” into your command prompt.

    If the query returns a “Stopped” status, it is just a matter of telling Windows to start the service by typing “net start vds” in your command prompt.

    Now you have started the service you should be able to mount the drives and assign the letters automatically when you plug them in.

    This will work during your current session on your computer but might not the next time you restart so it would be good to tell your computer to start the service every time the computer is booted up, and run in the back ground.

     

    To run Virtual Disk Service at start up

    1. Type “services.msc” in your command prompt.
    2. Scroll down to where it says, “Virtual Disk” and right click on it.
    3. Select “Properties” and in the “Startup Type” drop down menu select, “Automatic”.
    4. Restart your computer.

     

    Manually Assigning Your External Drive a Letter

    1. Right Click on “This PC” and select “Manage”.
    2. Click on “Disk Management”.
    3. Right Click on your external disk and choose a drive letter of your liking.
    4. Now you should see your external drive in your lists of disk.

     

    Still No External Disk Showing

    If you still can’t see your external disk drive there might be a problem with the actual drive or your computer could have conflicting software, bad drivers or some sort of virus in it.

    Townsville Nerds does a totally free diagnosis and a free quote with no obligation.

    Just give us a call on 0402 807 890 and we will be able to tell you what exactly is going on with your computer or drive, if the data needs recovering and how much it will cost.

     

     

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