Why won't computer assign hard drive a letter?

Question

I have a Dell 630i with. I added two hard drives a couple of years ago. One was recognized just fine and assigned a letter, the other was recognized in the device manager but wasn't assigned a letter.

I called Dell tech support and after some trouble shooting it was determined that the problem was my card reader. I have a 4-slot Bluetooth card reader, each of the four card slots is assigned a drive letter and something about that interferes with one of my drives being assigned a letter. The tech support guy was able to find a way around this. I can't remember what it was and like an idiot I didn't write it down.

Yesterday I removed the two additional drives, installed Windows 7 and reinstalled the drives. Like the first time they were added, one of the hard drives was recognized and assigned a letter no problem, data still intact. The second drive is again recognized in the device manager but not useable or assigned a drive letter.

I called tech support again but can't find anyone smart enough to realize that the drive doesn't need to be formatted. I just need to find the work around to the drive letter assignment. Hopefully one of you guys have the answer I need.

Also, if I look at the unassigned drive in Computer Management it has a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark.

C: OS
D: DVD DRIVE
E: ADDITIONAL DRIVE #1
F: CARD READER SLOT
G: CARD READER SLOT
H: CARD READER SLOT
I: CARD READER SLOT
??: ADDITIONAL DRIVE #2

Thanks very much.

Answer 1

Press Windows + R, this opens Run, type diskmgmt.msc, into the space, and press enter. This will open the Disk manager, rightclick on the drive, and set the drive letter, as D, every time windows opens it will be assigned that drive letter.

Answer 2

You should try updating your drivers if you haven't already. Just right click on the drive in device manager and select update driver.. if that doesn't work try going to the hard drive manufacture's website and see if they have the drivers. if that doesn't work, i have no idea what to do......

Answer 3

on account which you have offered new exterior HDD,only undemanding this is sparkling. to apply it,you like Partition it and then format it.when you do it is going to settle for a motive force's letter to enable use get entry to it. a million.Plug your ex-HDD on your pc. 2.actual click on My pc->manage 3.chosen Disk administration. 4.actual click on Unkown -> New Partition or (Create) 5.enter the dimensions you want to offer on your force. (One actual drivecan be separated to many logical force,each and each logical force would have a motive force letter).so which you would be able to divide to many force you one. Ex: One for HD-action picture, one for music, one to your information... by applying doing step 5 repeatly. Remmeber do on no account provide the entire length of ex-HDD for a logical motive force,do only it once you want to creat the final motive force on you ex-HDD 6.format those motive force and you will get entry to them now. stable success