Reference number: CH000854
How can I see all drives available on my
computer?
Question:
How can I see all drives available on my computer?
Answer:
Microsoft Windows 95, 98, ME,
NT, 2000, and XP users
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The above Microsoft Windows users can easily identify what
drives Windows has detected by opening
My Computer. To the
right is an example image of what My Computer may look like. As
can be seen from this example three different types of drives
are listed.
The first drive: 3 1/2
Floppy (A:) is the floppy disk drive. If a floppy
diskette is in the computer double-clicking this drive will
open and display the contents of this drive.
Next, the Local Disk (C:), New Volume (D:), and New Volume (E:)
are all hard disk drives
installed on this computer. Often most computers will only have a
C: drive. The hard disk drive is the primary location of where all
files are stored.
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Finally, the Compact Disc (F:) is the optical disk drive
installed in the computer. This could be the computer
CD-ROM,
CD-R,
CD-RW,
DVD, DVD-R, etc. drive. If a disc
is in the drive the contents of that disc will be opened if you
double-click the drive icon.
Microsoft Windows 3.x users
Windows 3.0, 3.1, and 3.11 users can open drives through the
Windows File Manager. Within
the File Manager click the drive icons shown above the
folder and
files. By default the C drive
will be open, if you wish to move to the floppy disk drive click
the A drive icon, or click the D or the CD-ROM drive icon if you
wish to open the CD drive.
MS-DOS users
Unfortunately there is no easy way to list all available drives
on the computer through the MS-DOS prompt with one command. Below
are different recommendations on viewing drives
Change drive letter
Simply changing the drive to an alternate drive letter will
allow you to determine if a drive is available and ready if no
error message is received.
Additional information about changing drive letters in MS-DOS
can be found on document CH000515.
Fdisk
If you're running a version of MS-DOS / Windows that supports
fdisk, running the fdisk command will allow you to view how the
hard disk drive(s) are setup and configured on the computer.
See our fdisk command page for
additional information about this command.
vol
Running the vol command on a drive will display the drives
label and serial number if available. This command will allow you
to quickly see what drives are detected.
Additional information:
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