# No Drive Letters Show in Disk Management



## john816 (Mar 12, 2009)

My primary HDD has 3 partitions
OS & Apps C:\ 
Data D:\ 
Junk E:\ 

I have a secondary HDD for backups only
Backup H:\

In My Computer, all these drives showup with the correct drive letter designation and everything appears to work correctly .
I can read and write from all drives with no problems.

I use Norton Ghost 12 to backup my C and D drives on a scheduled basis, but it gets confused with the recovery points. Norton Support says it's because my HDDs don't have any letter designation. Norton sees my drives as:
OS & Apps (*:\)
Data (*:\)

I look in Disk Management and it also does not show the drive letters of either of my HDDs or their partitions. If I try to assign a drive letter, it shows the next available letter is "J". 
How do you get these drive letters to show up?

My other drives (CD, DVD, USB) all show the drive letters.


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## raptor_pa (Dec 5, 2008)

Drive make and models, OS , and filesystem please...


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## john816 (Mar 12, 2009)

Primary drive is IDE 250MB Western digital WD2500JB 
Secondary drive is IDE320MB Western digital WD3200AAJB 

Filingsystem - NTFS


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## john816 (Mar 12, 2009)

OS is XP home SP3


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## raptor_pa (Dec 5, 2008)

How about a screen cap from Disk Management, not making any sense that the letters don't show there - arwe the drive NTFS formatted?


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## john816 (Mar 12, 2009)

Drives are NTFS formatted


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## microbob (Apr 8, 2009)

Try rescan for drive information

Start/run/cmd <enter>
diskpart <enter>
rescan <enter>
When finished type "exit" to quit diskpart and "exit" again to quit command prompt window.
Recheck Disk management for missing partitions.


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## abhijeetfalcons (May 14, 2009)

hey Microbob, i tried that its not going through, still i cannot see the drives in the Disk Management tool, only thing i can see i cd-rom, but i can access all the drives in the computer no issues with the drives....alll in good state...let me know if any other option other than clean installation..


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## noxcho (Aug 10, 2009)

If the problem is still valid here is a solution for you: 
Start Windows - press Start - run - type regedit and press ok/enter.
Then find the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
There you will need to select Edit - New - Multi-String Value.
Rename it to UpperFilters. Then right click on this value and select Modify. Type PartMgr.
Quit and then restart Windows.
Since then the drive letters will be in WDM. The cause of the problem is in rootkit viruses to my mind.


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## abhijeetfalcons (May 14, 2009)

hey noxcho.. thanx for thigs.. its working now.. also i did a scan and found viruses.. any ways so great of yaa.. aprreciate ya help .. tk cr:wave:


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## noxcho (Aug 10, 2009)

Glad to hear that I could help you. Let´s hope that this solution will help to others.
Take care too :wave:


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## TerryFuller (Jan 12, 2010)

Hi All,

I showing the same symptoms as "abhijeetfalcons" and will add the RegKey as per "noxcho". In addition to the same symptoms, I'm getting what may be extra affects. Applications hang on start up and others won't start. I can't use system restore and anti-viruses won't start. I'm working on a solution in Safe Mode. 

Lord only knows how I did it, but I infected myself with "Desk Top Defender" a week or so ago. Used MalwareBytes to remove it. My license for Kaspersky has lapsed and will renew and then scan. 

"abhijeetfalcons" can you tell me any more about the infections you found? Hoping that Kaspersky will catch whatever. 

Below is my "diskpart" results for anyone interested.
======================================
C:\Documents and Settings\Terry>diskpart

DISKPART> rescan

Please wait while DiskPart scans your configuration...
..........
DiskPart has finished scanning your configuration.

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ---------- ------- ------- --- ---

DISKPART> list volume

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 D DVD-ROM 0 B
Volume 1 H DVD-ROM 0 B
Volume 2 I DVD-ROM 0 B

DISKPART> exit

Leaving DiskPart...


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## TerryFuller (Jan 12, 2010)

Didn't have any luck with this option. When I went to insert the "UpperFilters" parm, I found that it was already there and had the values:

tdrpman228
PartMgr
snapman
tdrpman228

I removed all but the "PartMgr" and restarted. When the system came back up, I still didn't show any drives. Then I deleted the parm, rebooted (no drives), added the parm, rebooted and still did have drives in the WDM. I'm running a online scan vua Trend Micro's House Call. If it doesn't find anything, I think I need to start a new thread with a more complete history of the problem and attempted solutions.


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## noxcho (Aug 10, 2009)

Hello TerryFuller,

try to perform the scan with Avira. That free version shared via cnet did help me many times. And it worked where Kaspersky and McAfee failed.


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## TerryFuller (Jan 12, 2010)

HI noxcho,

I hate to say this, this is a real bugger. I'm not able to run AV SW off my original system. It shows an hour glass, the quits and no application starts. I can't run system restore. Once I've chosen the restore, when I click on the "Next" botton, nothing happens; the wizzard won't move to the next section. When I try to run CHKDSK from XP the system tells me that the "disk operation can't be completed" (not sure about the exact wording of the message). 


This morning I installed another drive on my box and installed a fresh copy of XP, installed Avira and scanned my original system drive. turn up some positives, but I think they were false positives. Quarinteened then anyway and rebooted to the original system (but opps... forgot to kill my network connection. so, I may have reinfected my self?) WDM still couldn't see any dirve and I still can't launch Kaspersky or Avira off that drive.


One of the strange thing that's happening is that IE keeps attempting to launch. I never use it, use Firefox. Anyway, it trys to launch, throughs an exception and dies. This time it launched, connected and started playing music. LOL My guess is that kind of activity is assocated with the darn "Desktop Defender" I caught.


Downloaded a trial of Kaspersky 2010 and will run it on the old system and disconnect from the net before rebooting. See what that does. 


This sure seems like a virus, but nothing shows up. But how and where is it hiding, BTW ran Avira's "Rootkit" profile and didn't find anything.

-------
History
-------

The problem showed up the other morning on boot. The system hang attempting to launch XP. I had to pull the plug in it to restart. The second time it came up. One to the first things the OS did was issue an error: "Hard disk not found" - "System administrator right needed to access..." (can't remember all of it). That's when I tried to run CHKDSK and couldn't do it from XP. Also, went to the WDm and found that no drives were listed. Disk showed up in Explorer and I found access rights when I'd check files. It was just that some applications wouldn't launch and nothing in WDM. Also, found some errors in the log from 'DCom Event ID 10005 - The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled ... attempting to start the service winmgmt with arguments ""...'


Went into the "Recovery Console" and ran "CHKDSK C: /R", but that didn't solve anything


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## TerryFuller (Jan 12, 2010)

Uninstalled Avira on the secondary/debug OS, installed Kaspersky 2010 and rescanned. It did find a "rootkit" virus and that was the problem. The original XP system is back up and I seem to have lost my network settings. Will put them back in the AM. 

Thanks noxcho for your help.

Hope this is of some help to those who may come after me.


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## enb (Jan 21, 2010)

Oh my goodness! Thank you, noxcho!! 
I had the same problem with WDM not showing drive letters. Could not figure it out. The system seemed to be running perfectly otherwise. I ran a root scan (with Avast) and found a virus. I wiped that out but found drive letters still did not show in WDM. I performed the regedit exactly as you described, rebooted and everything is working great!!

Thank you so much!!!


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## noxcho (Aug 10, 2009)

Most welcome enb. Glad to hear it worked for you.
Once I almost became bold trying to find out what could be the cause of this problem. And Windows reinstallation was no way. Finally deep researches helped. 
BTW, MS does not give help on this problem!!!
Take care.


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## Watson9 (Jan 29, 2010)

Noxcho, When I read your solution to this problem, I had little hope that it would work--that reg key seemed too obscure to be correct. What a pleasant surprise when it did work! Norton Ghost 14 had never displayed drive letters correctly, and it now does. Semantec had no answer. I'm curious about how you got this solution. Again, thank you very much.


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## noxcho (Aug 10, 2009)

Watson9 said:


> Noxcho, When I read your solution to this problem, I had little hope that it would work--that reg key seemed too obscure to be correct. What a pleasant surprise when it did work! Norton Ghost 14 had never displayed drive letters correctly, and it now does. Semantec had no answer. I'm curious about how you got this solution. Again, thank you very much.


Thanks Watson9, the fact it did help to someone fills me up with positive energy =)))
Frankly speaking I had similar problem myself exactly. I reinstalled SO, then one of my friends had it. Still was no solution. And again the problem came to me after Norton 360 install and deinstall. I was curious why could this happen. Researched the way Windows assigns the drive letters and discovered that PartMgr is responsible for this. Started looking for it and did not find that value in my OS registry. Strange, isn't it? Looked on another system that did not have this problem and found there PartMgr. All was clear then. 
I remembered how I did search google for this problem and got many descriptions but not solution. Immediately searched again and posted the solution on every discussion board where I did find problem descriptions.
I hope tech supportforum will keep this thread open as long as possible so other could get help also.

Regards
Noxcho


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## FireMan7209 (Jan 14, 2012)

Noxcho,

I know this is an old thread but I joined the forum just to let you know your efforts helped another; solved my issue also.

Thanks, Mike :thumb:


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## noxcho (Aug 10, 2009)

FireMan7209 said:


> Noxcho,
> 
> I know this is an old thread but I joined the forum just to let you know your efforts helped another; solved my issue also.
> 
> Thanks, Mike :thumb:


:uhoh: glad to hear it could help.


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## Watson9 (Jan 29, 2010)

Noxcho,

I see that your post is still helping people. You really saved the day for me some 2 years ago with the missing drive letter thing, and I think about you every time I run Norton Ghost. Thanks again!


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## noxcho (Aug 10, 2009)

Watson9 said:


> Noxcho,
> 
> I see that your post is still helping people. You really saved the day for me some 2 years ago with the missing drive letter thing, and I think about you every time I run Norton Ghost. Thanks again!


:angel: Good to know who makes my ears burn =)))


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## DogRox (May 29, 2014)

I know this is a very old post but I am having the same weird issue with my Windows XP Home Edition system running SP3. I noticed I do not have the drive letters to any of my hard drives(both DVD drives show their drive letters no problem) in Disk Management that is located in Computer Management. Only the drive volume names are displayed.What is odd though is that they appear fine in My Computer and in Explorer. They even appear in Disk Defragmenter also in Computer Mangement.

I can change the drive letters in Disk Management with no problem and the drives keep the drive letter intact correctly as I can see that in My Computer and in Explorer as well as Disk Defrag. they just do not display in disk management.

I have ran the command line program Diskpart though it list volume names and the LTR column is blank for the most part except for volume 0 and volume 1 which are the DVD drives as drive letters I and J. *I tried to the use the command Assign after selecting the volume, but it says invalid volume or mount point. Something to that effect. I then used MountVol to see list of drive letters and all the drive letters being used are indeed assigned.

I believe this issue came upon since a service pack update I had quite while ago about two years ago I remember having that problem with missing drive letters after that but it never dawned on me that it was a permanent problem until I started really needing it.

I have done what Noxcho advised I noticed that upperfilter registry was not even there so I had to create it with the value he mentioned and that does not work for me it only locks up my computer during bootup. I cannot reboot the computer no matter what. Neither in safe mode or normally. I have to go back to a ghost image just to get it to boot back up again. My ghost image is a recent ghost image that still has the same drive letter problem. 

I have read that this problem can be caused by having installed Norton Ghost on the computer. I want to make clear that I have not ran or installed Norton Ghost on my Windows XP as it was compatibility issues so I never installed it to the Windows XP. I did install Norton Ghost on my Vista computer and I made ghost boot disk. I had use that to make the ghost image of the Windows XP from a DOS command prompt. That shouldnt in anyway affect it.

Can anybody help me with this? And why does it lock up And become completely unbootable, when I try to do what the Noxcho says? I appreciate any help thank you.:nonono:


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## BIGBEARJEDI (Aug 8, 2012)

Hi Dog: 
Can you give us system specs, please on the affected computer, and the Make/Model number of that hard drive in question. Since any computer you are running is going to be at least 7 yrs. old up to 13 yrs. old--if that is an original hard drive it's very likely to be faulty or failed. 

Please post your specs or download SPECCY from piriform.com and run and post result back here. It's a free download and virus-free site. 

Have you run any hard drive diagnostics on the hard drive? If so, what program(s) and versions? 

The quick take here is download SeaTools from my Signature line below and run it on that hard drive. If it fails, you should begin data recovery on that drive IMMEDIATELY, and replace it. That's why it's giving you these problems and probably why Noxcho's registry key fix cannot repair it. 

Remember my Motto: "No software can fix broken hardware; especially a hard drive!". 

BIGBEARJEDI


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## DogRox (May 29, 2014)

Thank you for responding. I thought I did mention my specs of my system Windows XP 32 bit Home Edition. The hard drive has nothing to do with it this is my third hard drive on the system since I've owned the system I just replaced the hard drive not even 6 months ago. I built this system probably about 8 years ago never had any problems with it far as this situation. the problem is in the operating system itself. As I said I have a ghost image that I made and the problem is even in the ghost image. The ghost images made when a previous hard drive was installed. The problem still shows up no matter what hard drive I put it in so it leads me to believe that its in the operating system. and yes I have ran diagnostics on the hard drive and ran virus check everything.


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## BIGBEARJEDI (Aug 8, 2012)

Sure. you missed my point. hardware specs! what make of CPU (Intel, AMD, Via), speed, Ram (make, capacity-GB- speed). Make/Model (asus, gigabyte etc.]).

By the way, Ghost images are unreliable at best and often will not transfer between different brands/models of hard drives. you may not be aware of this. 

Will advise further once you post back your HARDWARE CONFIG.

best,
BBJ


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## DogRox (May 29, 2014)

hi, I don't know the specs off the top of my head right now. But I wanted to tell you the ghost has nothing to do with it. This problem was already there before i even made the ghost image because it was in the operating system that's in the ghost image. When I tried to reinstall the ghost image the problem was still there so obviously its in the ghost image itself. Meaning it was in the operating system prior yo making ghost image so the ghosting had nothing to do with it . Also, f.y.i this particular ghost image have always been on this hard drive only and it never been on a different hard drive, just letting you know. The problem was with an update I got from Windows XP its been there since. Thank you anyways for trying to help.


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## Watson9 (Jan 29, 2010)

DogRox,

NoxCho's registry fix solved the drive letter problem for me when I was running XP 32-bit Professional, SP3, on an HP Inspiron 530. I had NG 14 installed. It was that app not showing drive letters that prompted me to seek a solution. I would suggest that you first check very carefully that you have entered the correct registry keys and values that NoxCho specified. If the problem persists, then you might want to consider migrating to Win7. I resisted that move because I program in VB6, a language that lives very happily with XP, but was reported not to be entirely compatible with Win7. Because of the recent security update issues with XP, I reluctantly upgraded to Win7 64-bit Profession Edition. It installed on my existing computer with no problem, and compatibility issues have been very minor and fixable. (The Prof Edition includes an XP emulator, but I've not had to use it.) If you want to give that avenue a whirl, you can visit Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 - Help & How-to - Microsoft Windows. (If you upgrade, don't forget first to make a copy of all non-system files you would want to keep, such as documents, emails, favorites, and desktop. And be aware that if you buy a Win8 machine you cannot install Win7 on it.) None of this is a recommendation; just something for you to consider.


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## noxcho (Aug 10, 2009)

DogRox said:


> I know this is a very old post but I am having the same weird issue with my Windows XP Home Edition system running SP3. I noticed I do not have the drive letters to any of my hard drives(both DVD drives show their drive letters no problem) in Disk Management that is located in Computer Management. Only the drive volume names are displayed.What is odd though is that they appear fine in My Computer and in Explorer. They even appear in Disk Defragmenter also in Computer Mangement.
> 
> I can change the drive letters in Disk Management with no problem and the drives keep the drive letter intact correctly as I can see that in My Computer and in Explorer as well as Disk Defrag. they just do not display in disk management.
> 
> ...


Hi DogRox,

can you take a screen shot of your Windows Disk Management and post it here? 
Also have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling SP3?
A good research attempt would be clean installation of Windows XP home Edition on virtual machine and comparing the keys in Registry. 
As for the statement: "I cannot reboot". Can you extend this a bit? It turns off but never starts? If yes then how does it look like? 

Regards
Noxcho


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## BIGBEARJEDI (Aug 8, 2012)

_@Watson9:_

_FYI, there is no "HP Inspiron 530" computer model, Inspiron is a Dell owned model line, so it should read "*Dell Inspiron 530*". May not make a difference with this particular problem; but worth mentioning. _

_BIGBEARJEDI_



Watson9 said:


> DogRox,
> 
> NoxCho's registry fix solved the drive letter problem for me when I was running XP 32-bit Professional, SP3, on an HP Inspiron 530. I had NG 14 installed. It was that app not showing drive letters that prompted me to seek a solution. I would suggest that you first check very carefully that you have entered the correct registry keys and values that NoxCho specified. If the problem persists, then you might want to consider migrating to Win7. I resisted that move because I program in VB6, a language that lives very happily with XP, but was reported not to be entirely compatible with Win7. Because of the recent security update issues with XP, I reluctantly upgraded to Win7 64-bit Profession Edition. It installed on my existing computer with no problem, and compatibility issues have been very minor and fixable. (The Prof Edition includes an XP emulator, but I've not had to use it.) If you want to give that avenue a whirl, you can visit Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 - Help & How-to - Microsoft Windows. (If you upgrade, don't forget first to make a copy of all non-system files you would want to keep, such as documents, emails, favorites, and desktop. And be aware that if you buy a Win8 machine you cannot install Win7 on it.) None of this is a recommendation; just something for you to consider.


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## Watson9 (Jan 29, 2010)

BIGBEARJEDI,

You are absolutely correct. My goof. And the machine is sitting right here in front of me with the Dell logo engraved on the front. Yikes!


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## DogRox (May 29, 2014)

hello, sorry I haven't been back to the site in a while. I'll try to post a picture next time I'm at the computer as I'm using my tablet now. I use my tablet pretty much for all my browsing because I'm never near my computer.

but as far as the picture will show it will basically just show volume names of the drives as you would see normally but no drive letter beside in the parentheses as you look at it through disk management. also in diskpart command program.

as far as typing that entry from noxcho into my registry, It was exactly as I always make sure of that no typo on that cause I tried it many times. And what it does after i add it, the computer locks up during bootup. Just freezes there. I cannot boot into safe mode either. I have to fall back to a ghost image in order for me to get it working again. The ghost image obviously does not have that registry entry so I fall back to that when I can't boot the computer with that registry entry added. and I have tried many times and every time it locks up during boot up. There is nothing in there for the upperfilter in the registry. so I have to create it.

I thought about reinstalling service pack 3 but that's just going to completely mess up all updates since. I don't know what's more important, going through all that again or just leaving the computer as it is and living with the problem.  I also feel the same way about installing whole system all over again. 

as far as going to Windows 7 I really don't think this computer can handle the windows 7 hahaha  I know how Window 7 runs because I have it on my Vaio laptop.


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