How many letter drives can Windows Have? What to do when you run out?

Alciel · Jul 15, 2016

Just a quick question about Windows 7 and 10, I plan to be upgrading to Windows 10 sometime next week.

My only problem is that I have a of partitioned drives, So I want to know if there's a letter drive limit on Windows, And if there is what do I do about it when I reach the limit?

Right now I'm on Windows 7 and currently I have 23 letter drives, I'm not sure why but I also have 2 letter drives that I think aren't useful, Letter drive (I) only has 7.99MB with 4.08MB Free and Letter Drive (K) has 99.9MB with 82.3MB free, I'm not sure they are used for or if they do anything at all, My OS right now is on letter drive (C) but that's not partitioned, I originally thought that I and K were part of C because of my OS, Turns out that's not the case.

If I run out of Letters will I not be able to partition anymore?

USAFRet · Jul 15, 2016

OK..you HAVE to show us a screencap of your Disk Management window.

How many physical drives is this?

Bottom line, though, it is really only 24 drive letters. Yes, there are 26 letters in the alphabet, but you're not supposed to use A & B in any current system.

beshonk · Jul 15, 2016

Why on earth would you need that many drives?

SKIPPY PB · Jul 15, 2016

make a restore point then make another partition and find out?? Have a laptop to dig you out of any mess.

Thats a lot of partitions holy crap.

Eximo · Jul 15, 2016

Used to use A: and B: for a drive letter all the time. Just storage though. Some older programs really didn't like those letters.

Also reminds me of the one time we managed to get Windows installed on E: and couldn't change it without a clean wipe. Turns out iTunes was hard coded to C:\ for a while.

The apparent solution is to stop using drive letters: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc938934.aspx

Alciel · Jul 15, 2016

Its only 4 Physical Drives inside my PC.

Its as Follows:

From Least GB to Greatest TB

298.09Gb [300Gb](Disk 1) (Not Partitioned but has Letter Drive (F) and (I))

465.76Gb [500Gb](Disk 2) (Not Partitioned but has Letter Drive (K) and (L))

931.51Gb [1Tb](Disk 3) (Not Partitioned Main OS Drive)

1397.26Gb [1.5Tb] (Disk 4) (Partitioned 3 Times Holds letter drives (D), (G), (H), with Logical Drive (E)

The above 4 are all Physical HDDs

The Bottom 2 are Externals:

2794.39Gb [3Tb](External 1) (Partitioned 10 Times Holds letter Drives (N), (O), (P), (Q), (R), (S), (B), (T), (U), (V))

4657.40Gb [5Tb](External 2) (Partitioned 4 Times Holds Letter Drives (W), (X), (Y), (A).

Eximo · Jul 15, 2016

Well, looks like you could just re-merge some of those volumes and use folders...

USAFRet · Jul 15, 2016

OK...to start:
I & K can be done away with.
Right click, Change Drive letter and paths.... Remove

But good grief, man. That organization is done MUCH better with just some top level folders on each drive.

Alciel · Jul 15, 2016

I didn't know I could do that, How do I go about doing that?, Would I lose any of the data I have already?

I tried to once "unpartition" one of my externals because I made it to small, but that only made the partition smaller.

***EDIT***

I'm new to this sorry. I thought partition was the only way.

DelroyMonjo · Jul 15, 2016

I'd clean up that mess! Why not just use folders in various drives for your pictures/anime/music etc. instead of committing drive space in a partition which may or may not be used to it's fullest capacity.

Alciel · Jul 15, 2016

DelroyMonjo :

Is it still to late to "unpartition" my drives? I've no idea how to do so, I'm afraid of losing all my data.

USAFRet · Jul 15, 2016

Partitioning is the wrong way to do it.

For instance, Disk 4....3TB
anime, anime, pictures, videos, music, skype, Logs, Firefox, Movies I, JDownloader
Why does FireFox have its own partition? What happens when that reaches 79GB? Pain will ensue.

That should literally be just Folders on that drive.

"Fixing" this would be a major pain.

Here's what you do:
Remove the I and K drive letters from those little partitions
Buy another 4TB drive
Give it drive letter Z
Starting with Disk 4, create folders on this new drive, corresponding to each partition on Disk 4.
anime, anime, pictures, videos, music, skype, Logs, Firefox, Movies I, JDownloader

Copy the data from partition Anime1 to the folder Anime1 on this new drive.
Repeat for all the other partitions
So....you now have ALL the data from Disk 4, copied onto the new drive.
Now, delete each and every partition on Disk 4, leaving one large space.
Create a single partition, give it drive letter "N".
The folders on the Z drive (the new one), get copied to Disk 4, the N drive. Copy one by one, not all at once.
Once you have verified you have ALL of the data copied back to the 3TB N drive, you can delete all from the Z drive.

Repeat for all other drives, except the C (Disk 1).

Now....whatever applications and shortcuts you have mapped to all those drive letters WILL be all screwed up.
Hence the 'pain' I spoke of earlier.

USAFRet · Jul 15, 2016

Alciel :

That WILL kill your data.

Eximo · Jul 15, 2016

Looks like you have plenty of free space. The single drive way would be to shrink your volumes to the minimum. Plenty of tools out there for this, like AOEMI.

Shrink each partition until it holds just the files. Use the free space to create a single larger partition. Take the smallest partition's data, move it to the new partition. As each partition is emptied, delete it, and increase the new partition's size and repeat.

Not much you can do about software installs, but delete and re-install.

DelroyMonjo · Jul 15, 2016

Buy a SSD, 120GB will do. Fresh install your OS and drivers on that which will become your C: drive or Disk 0. Then Reboot with your new C: drive and start moving stuff around so your previous Disk 0 drive will become your new Disk 1 drive. Cut/delete/remove/repartition any unnecessary stuff and start rebuilding into something manageable. You likely have a lot of crap in there which is unnecessary in the first place.

Alciel · Jul 15, 2016

Eximo :

I am actually planning to buy a SSD today and do a fresh install on the SSD when it comes in and then upgrade to windows 10. Currently on my C drive there's only my OS and Skyrim and its Mods. I will just wipe my current C drive when my new windows is installed on my SSD.

Is this the software site you were talking about? http://www.aomeitech.com/

DelroyMonjo :

I plan to get the Crucial BX200 240GB CT240BX200SSD1 today and when it comes in I will do a fresh install and then upgrade to windows 10.

If I don't partition my drives will it still work with plex?

USAFRet · Jul 15, 2016

240GB is much better than a 120GB SSD.

When you install the OS on it, do that with ONLY the SSD connected. Disconnect ALL other drives.
If/when you start shuffling around the partitions and sizes instead of just moving the data off to another drive, be very, very careful. It is easy to screw it up.
'oops...I selected the wrong partition'

Alciel · Jul 15, 2016

USAFRet :

Alright, I'll disconnect the other drives when I go to install on my SSD, I wont need to partition the SSD for windows right?

Also back to my question, Will plex work if I don't use partitions?

Alciel · Jul 15, 2016

USAFRet :

What I mean by "Unpartitioning" is that once I remove all the media from the drive will I still be able to unpartition the my drive back to its old state? The massive space it used to be? Or will I be forced to get another HHD and start over?

Eximo · Jul 15, 2016

Yes the partition assistant is easy to use and supports pretty much every OS. I keep a copy on my recovery thumb drives.

Alciel · Jul 15, 2016

I also plan to get 2 new HHDs to replace the 500GB and the 300GB, Preferably in the 4TB category.

This is what I have in mind, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B99JU4S/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_img?_encoding=UTF8&colid=3G5CPHFYN72C8&coliid=IM0BBQGQVWII7&psc=1

2 of those drives.

unless someone has a better suggestion.

USAFRet · Jul 15, 2016

Alciel :

USAFRet :

What I mean by "Unpartitioning" is that once I remove all the media from the drive will I still be able to unpartition the my drive back to its old state? The massive space it used to be? Or will I be forced to get another HHD and start over?

Yes, no problem. Once the data is off and verified good at the new location, delete all existing partitions.

USAFRet · Jul 15, 2016

Alciel :

No, you do not create a bunch of partitions on the SSD.
Start with just the whole drive. Windows will create a couple, for boot info.
Let it, and then leave them alone.

After that, with regard to partitions on the other drives, the only word you need to know is DELETE.

Alciel · Jul 15, 2016

What do you think of the two 4TB drives that I said I was looking into? Would those be good?

This is mostly for a Plex server but other things as well.

USAFRet · Jul 15, 2016

Alciel :

Sure.
Fix the partitioning first, before Plex.

How many letter drives can Windows Have? What to do when you run out?

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