Unable to assign drive letter to a drive from another pc.

Any encryption on the machine?

Are you using an administrative account?

Are you running disk management as administrator?

Thanks
Alex

No third party encryption, and I am pretty sure bitlocker was never activated on the failed PC. I went into bitlocker and the drive does not show up as an option in there. Yes I am logged onto the PC as an Administrator and running as an administrator.

1. Open a command prompt.

2. Type in diskpart.

3. Type list disk to see a list of disks.

4. Type select disk #  (where # is the disk you want).

5. Type list volume to see partitions.

6. Type select volume #  (where # is the volume you want).

7. Type assign letter=x  (where x is the drive letter).

oh run as administrator for command prompt

Try the assignment using diskpart on the elevated command line.
Syntax probably is
diskpart
select disk 1
list partition
select partition 1
assign letter=x

:-)

High five with Mcknife :D

i opened a command prompt as administrator. Shown below Disk 1 is the drive in question. Ran diskpart and here is what I got:

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17134.137]
(c) 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.17134.1

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: GROK

DISKPART> list disk

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online          476 GB      0 B        *
  Disk 1    Online         1863 GB      0 B

DISKPART> select disk 1

Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list volume

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 0     C   Windows      NTFS   Partition    450 GB  Healthy    Boot
  Volume 1     D   LENOVO       NTFS   Partition     25 GB  Healthy
  Volume 2         WINRE_DRV    NTFS   Partition   1000 MB  Healthy
  Volume 3         SYSTEM_DRV   FAT32  Partition    260 MB  Healthy    System

DISKPART> list partition

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    Primary             15 TB   4096 B

DISKPART> select partition 1

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> assign letter=m

There is no volume specified.
Please select a volume and try again.

DISKPART>

i opened a command prompt as administrator. Shown below Disk 1 is the drive in question. Ran diskpart and here is what I got:

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17134.137]
(c) 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.17134.1

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: GROK

DISKPART> list disk

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online          476 GB      0 B        *
  Disk 1    Online         1863 GB      0 B

DISKPART> select disk 1

Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list volume

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 0     C   Windows      NTFS   Partition    450 GB  Healthy    Boot
  Volume 1     D   LENOVO       NTFS   Partition     25 GB  Healthy
  Volume 2         WINRE_DRV    NTFS   Partition   1000 MB  Healthy
  Volume 3         SYSTEM_DRV   FAT32  Partition    260 MB  Healthy    System

DISKPART> list partition

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    Primary             15 TB   4096 B

DISKPART> select partition 1

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> assign letter=m

There is no volume specified.
Please select a volume and try again.

DISKPART>

There is something funny going on since diskpart lists that partition as being a 15 TB partition, while the drive is said to be a 1863GB drive (about 2 TB). Maybe a defect.

One thing i just noted is:

Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    Primary             15 TB   4096 B

That is an incorrect partition size, this is a 2TB drive. Now there was a Raid Array in the crashed PC as well that was 15TB.

6. Type select volume #  (where # is the volume you want).

Pick the correct volume, you never did that.


Ok so the raid that was in the PC, i'm guessing you may have yanked a drive that's attached to it.

DISKPART> list volume

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 0     C   Windows      NTFS   Partition    450 GB  Healthy    Boot
  Volume 1     D   LENOVO       NTFS   Partition     25 GB  Healthy
  Volume 2         WINRE_DRV    NTFS   Partition   1000 MB  Healthy
  Volume 3         SYSTEM_DRV   FAT32  Partition    260 MB  Healthy    System

DISKPART> list partition


there isn't a Select volume in there :D

You need to use diskpart clean to get rid of the raid metadata. Usually works. If it does not, you need to connect it to a similar or same RAID controller and delete the incomplete RAID array.

The volume was not listed in the list volume response so I could not select it. And no, I haven't even done anything with the Raid Array yet it is still intact in the other husk, the user of the crashed PC had put files on this drive that I am trying to recover

The crashed PC had the following:

C: 512GB SSD
D: DVD
E: 2TB drive (this is the one in question)
F: 15TB Raid array

if you're trying to recover from the RAID array you should take the existing card from that machine, put it into yours and drop all the drives in the array back in. Then recover it.

You're making it harder than it is.

The Raid array consists of four 5TB drives.

I am taking a look at the Easeus disk recovery now.

Why would a 2-TB-Drive that was not part of the 15-TB-Array even get listed as 15 TB!?
You should use my advice and try diskpart clean, or are you hoping to recover data from it?

He wants to recover from it. I think part of this drive got pulled into the RAID array

Ever seen a drive get pulled into an array :-) ? Have never seen anything like this.

I am not sure if the user got a virus or what. the drives were all incorrect on the crashed pc. i tried twice friday to use diskpart to properly reassign the drive letters and after each reboot they changed again. I have never seen anything like this either.

Not unless they screwed up when they created the array.

The crashed PC had the following:

C: 512GB SSD
D: DVD
E: 2TB drive (this is the one in question)
F: 15TB Raid array

The machine had been running in this configuration for 2+ years with no issues till Friday.

Could have still screwed up when they created the disk array.

EAseus Data Recovery is finding files on the drive so have to wait for it to finish and start recovery.