How to use label to rename drives from the windows command prompt

Change Drive label from local disk # to whatever you want is necessary when you have many partitions to manage. In this page, for example, I would like to change my four partitions: Local Disk C: E: F: to System, Tools, Programs, there’s no need to change drive label in registry, Follow my steps:

Steps to change drive label in Command Prompt

1. Press WIN key or click start bottom, type CMD, run cmd.exe as administrator. It’s required to run it as administrator to change drive label.
2. Type label C: System, Press Enter; > Type label E: Tools, Press Enter; > Type label F: Programs, Press Enter;
3. Double click This PC on desktop to check new labels.

Change Drive Label in Partition Expert

1. Run Partition Expert, click C partition, click Change Label,
2. In the new dialog window, type System, click OK
3. Do the same operations to Partition E: and Partition F:

Change Drive Label in Windows Explorer

Change Drive label in Windows Explorer is very often used by most of us.

1. WIN+E to open Windows Explorer.
2. Click Partition C: not double click, just single click, Press F2,
3. Type new name to it.

tutorial by Ciprian Adrian Rusen published on 02.18.2020

In Windows 10, every drive uses a familiar name that helps you identify it. For instance, the drive that holds the operating system is called Local Disk. At the same time, a USB memory stick is named USB Drive. Also, network drives and mapped drives use the locations they point to as their names. Although Windows 10 sets default names for every drive, you might want to customize the drives from your computer to recognize them more easily. In this guide, we share five ways to rename all types of drives in Windows 10. Let’s get started:

IMPORTANT: This guide covers the renaming of mapped drives, network drives, flash drives, and disk partitions in your Windows 10 PC. Some methods work for all types of drives, others just for a subset. For each method, we mention the type of drive for which it works. When you rename a drive in Windows 10, its name cannot contain any of the following characters: / : * ? ” |. None of the methods shared in this guide work for optical drives, like Blu-ray drives or CD/DVD drives.

How to rename all types of drives using the Rename option

Open File Explorer and go to This PC. There you see all the drives and network locations that exist in Windows 10. Click to select the drive that you want to rename. Then, to access the Rename option, you can click or tap the Computer tab on the ribbon, and then the Rename option.

Or, you can right-click (or press-and-hold) the drive that you are interested in, and then choose Rename in the contextual menu.

Finally, you can also click or tap on the drive that you want to rename, and then press the F2 key on your keyboard. No matter which method you chose to get here, type the new name that you want for the selected drive. Press Enter on your keyboard or click or tap somewhere in the empty space from the File Explorer window to apply it.

When you try to rename drives like the partition where Windows 10 is installed, you receive this message: “Access Denied – You will need to provide administrator permission to rename this drive.” If you are logged with an account that is administrator in Windows 10, press Continue, and you are done. Otherwise, you also have to enter the password of another user account that is an administrator on your PC in the UAC prompt that is shown.

This method works both for network locations (mapped drives) and storage drives, including USB flash drives and external hard disks.

Rename all types of drives using their Properties

Another method that works for all types of drives, from mapped drives to partitions and flash drives, is to access their Properties and rename them from there. Accessing the Properties of a drive can be done in many ways. The easiest is from File Explorer. Open it and go to This PC. Then, select the drive that you want to rename from “Devices and drives” or “Network locations.“ Go to the Computer tab on the ribbon, and then click or tap the Properties button.

Another method is to right-click or press-and-hold on the drive that you want to rename and choose Properties in the contextual menu. Alternatively, you can click or tap on the drive and then press the ALT+Enter keys on your keyboard simultaneously.

You can also access the Properties of a drive from other places, like Disk Management or Computer Management. The caveat to these tools is that you can use them only to rename partitions on your SSD or HDD, and USB drives attached to your computer. Let’s see how it works: Open Disk Management and right-click (or press-and-hold) the drive that you want to rename. Then,choose Properties from the contextual menu.

If you open Computer Management, go to Storage -> Disk Management, right-click (or press-and-hold) the drive that you want to rename, and choose Properties.

No matter how you got to the Properties window of the drive that you want to rename, type the new name in the General tab and press OK or Apply.

The selected drive is now renamed using the new name that you have entered.

Rename all drives with a drive letter from the Command Prompt or PowerShell

If the drive that you want to rename has a letter assigned (like a USB flash drive), you can rename it using a simple command. Open the Command Prompt or start PowerShell as an administrator, and enter this command: label DriveLetter: NewName. For example, to rename the I: drive to CITIZEN, we typed: label I: CITIZEN. To execute the command, press Enter on your keyboard.

There is another similar command which works only in Powershell: Set-Volume -DriveLetter Letter -NewFileSystemLabel “NewName”. To rename the I: drive DIGITAL, we typed the following command:

Set-Volume -DriveLetter I -NewFileSystemLabel “DIGITAL”

Don’t forget to press Enter when you are done typing in the command to execute it. When you go to File Explorer, you see that the drive was renamed using the name that you typed in earlier.

NOTE: This method doesn’t work for network drives and mapped drives, only for storage drives.

How to rename drives from PowerShell using their existing names

You can start PowerShell and use another command that helps you rename a storage drive (flash drive, external hard disk, partition) using its existing name. Type the command: Set-Volume -FileSystemLabel “DriveName” -NewFileSystemLabel “NewDriveName”.

For example, to rename a drive named CITIZEN into Digital, we wrote: Set-Volume -FileSystemLabel “CITIZEN” -NewFileSystemLabel “Digital”.

Press Enter to execute the command. When you go to File Explorer, you see the drive renamed.

How to rename an external drive using an Autorun.inf file

This method works best for removable drives, like USB flash drives and USB hard drives. However, it can also be used for your PC’s internal hard disk drives. When Windows 10 mounts a drive, it checks if a file called autorun.inf exists on it. This file can contain information about the name of that drive and the icon it uses. If such information is present, Windows 10 uses it to display the drive in File Explorer and in any other places. The autorun.inf file should have an entry label=”DriveName”. Replace DriveName with the name of the drive that you want to use.

We’ve shown how to create autorun.inf files and personalize them in this tutorial: How to set a custom icon & label for removable drives in Windows.

Which method do you prefer for renaming drives in Windows 10?

As you have seen in this guide, there are many ways to rename a drive in Windows 10. Unfortunately, not all of them work for all types of drives. Some methods can be used to rename network drives as well as storage drives, while others work only for storage drives. Hopefully, our guide has managed to help you find the solution you need for the type of drive that you want to rename. If you have any problems or errors, do not hesitate to share them in the comments below.

Martin Hendrikx has been writing about technology for years. His freelance career includes everything from blog posts and news articles to eBooks and academic papers. Read more.

Label is a another handy tool that you can use though the command prompt application. As its name suggests, its main function is to edit disk labels which is useful if you use many external drives or mapped drives and want to label them for specific uses.

A Little about Label

This tool was originally designed for labeling floppy drives but as technology evolved, so did the label tool, to the point where it can also be used to label HDD’s, external HDD’s, SSD’s, USB devices, and mapped network drives.

While labeling a volume, there are some limitations. If you are labeling a FAT volume, you can use 11 characters, while NTFS volumes can use up to 32 characters. Your labels cannot include tabs but you can use spaces. If you are labeling an NTFS drive, you can use all characters, however, FAT volumes cannot be labeled with the following characters:

Label’s Switches and Parameters

There are two main switches you can use with the label tool; these are:

1. /MP – This switch tells label that the volume you are working with should be treated as a mount point or volume name.
2. /? – This second switch is used when you need help with the label tool.

When entering commands for the label tool, there are three parameters that you will need to define. These are as follows.

1. Drive – This is where you will enter the letter of the drive you want to name.
2. Label – This parameter is where you need to specify your new volume name.
3. Volume – The volume parameter is the drive letter, mount point, or volume name. If you specify a volume name, you don’t need to use the /MP switch.

Label’s Syntax

Like every tool in command prompt, you will need to know how to enter your commands with the proper syntax. The label tool will require you to use the following syntax. Please refer to the previous section for more information on the elements of the command.

Let’s Practice

First, we recommend that you get a flash drive and connect it to your computer for this tutorial. Once you have practiced on the flash drive, you can move on to more volumes. Now you will need to open up an elevated command prompt window. Open the start menu in Windows 7 and 10 or open the search function in Windows 8 and search for CMD. Next, right-click on it and then press “Run as administrator.” While you don’t need to open an elevated command prompt window, it will help you to avoid any pesky confirmation dialog boxes.

Now that you have an elevated command prompt window opened, you are ready to label your drive. Let’s change the label on the internal hard drive to “HTG Rules.” Remember to replace the drive letter shown in this tutorial with the letter of that corresponds with your flash drive, or whatever drive you want to label.

After you press enter, you can go to your “My Computer” folder and see the change you made. Your drive should now be labeled as “HTG Rules” — and it will work for any of your drives except optical, of course.

tutorial by Ciprian Adrian Rusen published on 02.18.2020

In Windows 10, every drive uses a familiar name that helps you identify it. For instance, the drive that holds the operating system is called Local Disk. At the same time, a USB memory stick is named USB Drive. Also, network drives and mapped drives use the locations they point to as their names. Although Windows 10 sets default names for every drive, you might want to customize the drives from your computer to recognize them more easily. In this guide, we share five ways to rename all types of drives in Windows 10. Let’s get started:

IMPORTANT: This guide covers the renaming of mapped drives, network drives, flash drives, and disk partitions in your Windows 10 PC. Some methods work for all types of drives, others just for a subset. For each method, we mention the type of drive for which it works. When you rename a drive in Windows 10, its name cannot contain any of the following characters: / : * ? ” |. None of the methods shared in this guide work for optical drives, like Blu-ray drives or CD/DVD drives.

How to rename all types of drives using the Rename option

Open File Explorer and go to This PC. There you see all the drives and network locations that exist in Windows 10. Click to select the drive that you want to rename. Then, to access the Rename option, you can click or tap the Computer tab on the ribbon, and then the Rename option.

Or, you can right-click (or press-and-hold) the drive that you are interested in, and then choose Rename in the contextual menu.

Finally, you can also click or tap on the drive that you want to rename, and then press the F2 key on your keyboard. No matter which method you chose to get here, type the new name that you want for the selected drive. Press Enter on your keyboard or click or tap somewhere in the empty space from the File Explorer window to apply it.

When you try to rename drives like the partition where Windows 10 is installed, you receive this message: “Access Denied – You will need to provide administrator permission to rename this drive.” If you are logged with an account that is administrator in Windows 10, press Continue, and you are done. Otherwise, you also have to enter the password of another user account that is an administrator on your PC in the UAC prompt that is shown.

This method works both for network locations (mapped drives) and storage drives, including USB flash drives and external hard disks.

Rename all types of drives using their Properties

Another method that works for all types of drives, from mapped drives to partitions and flash drives, is to access their Properties and rename them from there. Accessing the Properties of a drive can be done in many ways. The easiest is from File Explorer. Open it and go to This PC. Then, select the drive that you want to rename from “Devices and drives” or “Network locations.“ Go to the Computer tab on the ribbon, and then click or tap the Properties button.

Another method is to right-click or press-and-hold on the drive that you want to rename and choose Properties in the contextual menu. Alternatively, you can click or tap on the drive and then press the ALT+Enter keys on your keyboard simultaneously.

You can also access the Properties of a drive from other places, like Disk Management or Computer Management. The caveat to these tools is that you can use them only to rename partitions on your SSD or HDD, and USB drives attached to your computer. Let’s see how it works: Open Disk Management and right-click (or press-and-hold) the drive that you want to rename. Then,choose Properties from the contextual menu.

If you open Computer Management, go to Storage -> Disk Management, right-click (or press-and-hold) the drive that you want to rename, and choose Properties.

No matter how you got to the Properties window of the drive that you want to rename, type the new name in the General tab and press OK or Apply.

The selected drive is now renamed using the new name that you have entered.

Rename all drives with a drive letter from the Command Prompt or PowerShell

If the drive that you want to rename has a letter assigned (like a USB flash drive), you can rename it using a simple command. Open the Command Prompt or start PowerShell as an administrator, and enter this command: label DriveLetter: NewName. For example, to rename the I: drive to CITIZEN, we typed: label I: CITIZEN. To execute the command, press Enter on your keyboard.

There is another similar command which works only in Powershell: Set-Volume -DriveLetter Letter -NewFileSystemLabel “NewName”. To rename the I: drive DIGITAL, we typed the following command:

Set-Volume -DriveLetter I -NewFileSystemLabel “DIGITAL”

Don’t forget to press Enter when you are done typing in the command to execute it. When you go to File Explorer, you see that the drive was renamed using the name that you typed in earlier.

NOTE: This method doesn’t work for network drives and mapped drives, only for storage drives.

How to rename drives from PowerShell using their existing names

You can start PowerShell and use another command that helps you rename a storage drive (flash drive, external hard disk, partition) using its existing name. Type the command: Set-Volume -FileSystemLabel “DriveName” -NewFileSystemLabel “NewDriveName”.

For example, to rename a drive named CITIZEN into Digital, we wrote: Set-Volume -FileSystemLabel “CITIZEN” -NewFileSystemLabel “Digital”.

Press Enter to execute the command. When you go to File Explorer, you see the drive renamed.

How to rename an external drive using an Autorun.inf file

This method works best for removable drives, like USB flash drives and USB hard drives. However, it can also be used for your PC’s internal hard disk drives. When Windows 10 mounts a drive, it checks if a file called autorun.inf exists on it. This file can contain information about the name of that drive and the icon it uses. If such information is present, Windows 10 uses it to display the drive in File Explorer and in any other places. The autorun.inf file should have an entry label=”DriveName”. Replace DriveName with the name of the drive that you want to use.

We’ve shown how to create autorun.inf files and personalize them in this tutorial: How to set a custom icon & label for removable drives in Windows.

Which method do you prefer for renaming drives in Windows 10?

As you have seen in this guide, there are many ways to rename a drive in Windows 10. Unfortunately, not all of them work for all types of drives. Some methods can be used to rename network drives as well as storage drives, while others work only for storage drives. Hopefully, our guide has managed to help you find the solution you need for the type of drive that you want to rename. If you have any problems or errors, do not hesitate to share them in the comments below.

Here comes the detailed steps about how to change volume label using CMD in Windows 10, 8 or 7, which helps you to rename a drive effortlessly.

By Bryce / Last Updated May 8, 2021

About volume label

Volume label (volume name), is a name assigned to a drive. Usually, you can give a name to a partition to show what saved on it, thus you can find out the files and folders that you need quickly and effectively. You can set or change the volume label for a drive when, after it is created.

For example, you have two USB drives connected to your PC, one is for you to solve back up files, and the other is for you to contain music files. You can set the volume label for the drive that holds backup files as “backup” and the other as “music”.

Change volume label using CMD step by step

If you don’t have set an appropriate volume label for a drive at the very start, you can rename it from Windows Explorer, Disk Management, or CMD. here shows you how to change the volume label for a drive using CMD in Windows 10/8/7 at length.

Firstly, press Windows + R at the same time, input cmd,В and hit Enter to run Command Prompt as administrator.

Then, in CMD interface, type “label f: music” and press Enter key on the keyboard.

Notes:
☞ “f” is the drive letter of the drive that you want to rename; it’s available to replace music with the name that you want to give to the drive.
☞ If you want to find a volume label rather than set a new volume label for a drive, you can run “vol x:” to list the volume label for x: drive.

Change volume label using third-party partition manager

Or you can use a third-party partition software, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, to change the name of a drive in Windows 10/8.1/8/7, XP, and Vista. It’s with concise interface and very easy to handle. Apart from renaming a drive, it can also change the drive letter for a drive, convert NTFS partition into FAT32 without formatting and etc. You can click the following button to free download it.

Now, install, run it on your PC and take a look at how it changes the volume label for a drive.

Step 1. In the home interface, right-click the drive that you want to rename and select Change Label.

Step 2. In the pop-up window, input the new label that you want to assigned to the drive and click OK.

Step 3. You’ll return to the home interface, click Apply and Proceed to commit the operation. If you are unsatisfied with the result, you can click Discard to cancel the operation.

NoteпјљIf the drive is formatted with FAT/FAT partition, the label can be set up 11 characters; If the drive is formatted with NTFS, the label is up to 32 characters.

We can use the command rename to rename files from windows command prompt(CMD). Find below syntax of the command with examples.

Syntax of rename command:

After executing the above command we’ll have file2.doc in the folder d:\data

Ren is alias for rename , so both refer to the same command.

Errors:

1. If the files is being used by a program, then rename command fails with below error.
2. You also need to have sufficient privileges to rename the file.
3. Rename changes just the file name, it does not convert a file from one type to another. For example, if you rename a file from mp4 to mp3 extension, it does not change the file format. Renaming a doc file ‘mydocument.docx’ to ‘mydocument.pdf’ does not make the file readable in Acrobat Reader.

Does the command have to be executed in the root directory, or can it be done in a subdirectory that is in the root directory? Also, can a directory be renamed (EXAMPLE: renaming Dell.dir to Newname.dir)?

yes, you can run the command (for that matter, any other windows command) from any folder, it need not be root folder. And yes, ren works for directories too. There’s a separate post for this –

this command gives repeating of filename when there are more then 40 files in the folders ?
any solution for renaming 100s of file .

i have
4299999940_M_harsha.png these type of files in several sub folders, with similar name structure(42 as first part of name, 40_M_harsha as last part of name.. in between 6digits(which may contain 42 and 40 also.in this example it has 999999))
i have to rename it as 99999..i.e, remove first and last part of file name which is common for all files in the subfolder
another examples:
4292345640_M_harsha.png -> 923456
4291424040_M_harsha.png -> 914240
could u please help

how do I rename a file by keeping the last 20 characters. I have random file names however the last 20 characters are what I want to keep. They are dates and a document ID.

filename too long cannot rename Please now setup new rename

I use, Batch Rename Files Tool. You can easily found hier BatchRenameFiles.org that allows you to quickly rename all the files in a specified directory.

Simple stuff. Been there and done that but I have a mess of files that contain a “%20” or several in the filename. I need help to sort this out. My REXX program has produced a batch file containing lines like these:

1.JPG” corn_escaLator.jpg
ren “CHOCO%

1.JPG” choco_Lady.jpg
ren “CAT%20

4.JPG” cat_wet_getting_bathed.jpg
ren “CAT%20

3.JPG” cat_burrito.jpg
ren “CAT%20

2.JPG” cat_bra.jpg
ren “CAT%20

1.JPG” cat_bite_nose.jpg
ren “BOOTY%

1.JPG” booty_cake.jpg
ren “BIRD%2

2.JPG” bird_watersLide.jpg
ren “BIRD%2

1.JPG” bird_mouth_dog.jpg
ren “BIG%20

1.JPG” big_mac.jpg
ren “BANK%2

1.JPG” bank_cake.jpg
ren “ANGEL%

Suffice to say it isn’t working as intended. I get tons of
“The system cannot find the file specified.” messages.

I prefer not to use the powershell whether I have it or not in case I need to run this in a more primitive Windows. I have tried rename instead of ren and without double quotes. I have administrator privileges.

I am running Windows7 32-bit.

GOOD, IT WORKED FOR ME

I use windows 10, and I did the steps, even in the location but it ‘couldn’t find the file specified.’ Please help.

How might one control the label for mapped drives as they appear in My Computer, from the command line?

The goal is to have the drive letter at the beginning of the phrase instead of the end, so when navigating with the keyboard one simply types the drive letter to jump to that item in the list. So, for example:

will show this in My Computer:

skunkworks on ‘Long descriptive name of file server (servername)’ (X:)

but what we want is something like:

One can interactively change the label with Windows Explorer, but this must be done seperately for every user profile and is a pain. It’d be really nice to relabel the drives as part of the login script.

2 Answers 2

You can actually change this per drive mapping with a name of your choice. We do this if customers want to give more friendly names to mapped drives in enterprise environents.

Check out the following vbscript to get you in the right direction (a better script would take path an desired name as arguments and do drive mappings in a function for a bit more streamlined and object-oriented approach)

Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
   1. Locate and then click one of the following subkeys in the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer
   2. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
   3. Type ToggleCommentPosition, and then press ENTER.
   4. On the Edit menu, click Modify.
   5. Type 1, and then click OK.
   6. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
   7. Type ShowDriveLettersFirst, and then press ENTER.
   8. On the Edit menu, click Modify.
2. Type 2, and then click OK.

The registry values have the following results:

Key: ToggleCommentPosition Type: DWORD Value: 1 or 0 If the value is 0, Windows uses “share_name on comment_text (computer_name) (drive_letter).”

If the value is 1, Windows uses “share_name on computer_name (comment_text) (drive_letter).” Key: ShowDriveLettersFirst Type: DWORD Value: 1,2, or 4 If the value is 1, the drive letter is displayed first for remote drives. If the value is 2, drive letters are not displayed. If the value is 4, the drive letter is displayed first for all drives. This registry entry can be applied in a Per-Machine policy or in a Per-User policy, by using one of the following subkeys:

Don’t like the letters assigned to your drives in Windows? Change them!

Tim Fisher has 30+ years’ professional technology experience. He focuses on support and Microsoft topics but is an expert in all areas of tech. He’s also the GM & VP of Lifewire.

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

• Tweet
• Share
• Email

While they might seem set in stone, the letters assigned to your hard drives, optical drives, and USB based drives in Windows are very much not a fixed thing.

Maybe you’re using a new external hard drive and now you want to change the drive letter to G from the F it was assigned, or maybe you just like to keep your flash drives organized at the end of the alphabet.

Windows’ Disk Management Makes It Easy

Whatever the reason, the Disk Management tool in Windows makes changing drive letters surprisingly easy, even if you’ve never worked with your drives in any way before.

Changing drive letters in Windows usually takes less than a few minutes, at most.

Unfortunately, you can’t change the drive letter of the partition that Windows is installed onto. On most computers, this is usually the C drive.

These steps apply to Windows XP and newer versions of Windows. See What Version of Windows Do I Have? if you’re not sure which you’re running.

How to Change Drive Letters in Windows

Open Disk Management, the tool in Windows that lets you manage drive letters, among [many] other things.

In Windows 10 and Windows 8, Disk Management is also available from the Power User Menu (WIN+X keyboard shortcut) and is probably the quickest way to open it. You can also start Disk Management from the Command Prompt in any version of Windows, but starting it via Computer Management is probably best for most of you.

Locate from the list at the top, or from the map at the bottom, the drive you want to change the drive letter of.

If you’re not sure that the drive you’re looking at is really the one you want to change the drive letter for, you can right-click or tap-and-hold the drive and then choose Explore. If you need to, look through the folders to see if that’s the right drive.

Right-click or tap-and-hold the drive and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths.

Select Change.

If you’ve selected the primary drive by accident, some versions of Windows will display a message that reads Windows cannot modify the drive letter of your system volume or boot volume.

Choose the drive letter you want Windows to assign to this storage device by selecting it from the Assign the following drive letter drop-down box.

You don’t need to worry if the drive letter is already being used by another drive because Windows hides any letters you can’t use.

Select OK.

Choose Yes to the Some programs that rely on drive letters might not run correctly. Do you want to continue? question.

If you have software installed to this drive, it might stop working properly after changing the drive letter. See details on this in the section below.

Once the drive letter change is complete, which usually only takes a second or two, you’re welcome to close any open Disk Management or other windows.

The drive letter is different from the volume label. You can change the volume label using similar steps.

If You Have Programs Not on the Main Drive

Changing drive letter assignments for drives that have software installed to them may cause the software to stop working. This isn’t quite as common with newer programs and apps but if you have an old program, especially if you’re still using Windows XP or Windows Vista, this is likely to be a problem.

Fortunately, most of us don’t have software installed to drives other than the primary drive (typically the C drive), but if you do, consider this your warning that you might need to reinstall the software after changing the drive letter.

No Changes for the Operating System Drive

You cannot change the drive letter of the drive that the Windows operating system is installed on. If you’d like Windows to exist on a drive other than C, or whatever it happens to be now, you can make that happen but you’ll have to complete a clean install of Windows to do it. Unless you have a pressing need to have Windows exist on a different drive letter, we don’t recommend going through all that trouble.

Change, Don’t Switch

There’s no built-in way to switch drive letters between two drives in Windows. Instead, use a drive letter that you don’t plan on using as a temporary “holding” letter during the drive letter change process.

For example, let’s say you’d like to swap Drive A for Drive B. Start by changing Drive A’s letter to one that you don’t plan on using (like X), then Drive B’s letter to Drive A’s original one, and finally Drive A’s letter to Drive B’s original one.

Using the Command Prompt

You can also change the drive letter from Command Prompt. It’s not as easy as using Disk Management and you can’t see right away which letters are available to choose, but it is completely doable with the diskpart command.

The label command is used to view or change the label of a computer’s drives.

• Availability
• Label syntax
• Label examples
• Possible issues
• Questions and answers

Availability

Label is an external command that is available for the following Microsoft operating systems. MS-DOS 4.0x and earlier used label.com as the external file. MS-DOS 5.0 and versions of Windows that support this command use label.exe as the external file.

Label syntax

• Windows Vista and later syntax.
• Windows XP and earlier syntax.

Windows Vista and later syntax

Windows XP and earlier syntax

Label examples

The example above would label the floppy diskette in drive A: to “hope,” but will not label if your disk is write-protected.

Possible issues

If your hard drive label contains ASCII or other extended characters and you are running MS-DOS 6.0 or lower, running ScanDisk may corrupt the hard drive.

Because ScanDisk is looking for corrupt or incorrect data, if the hard drive label has ASCII or any unrecognized characters it attempts to fix those characters. If ScanDisk attempts to fix your label, it may remove all information and place it into a CHK file.

If the hard drive has unrecognizable characters, unable to delete the partition using fdisk.

Use label to recreate the label and then use fdisk to delete the partition after label created.