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Ronda Rousey Opens Up About The Tragedy That Changed Her Path To Success

In the UFC community, Ronda Rousey is an icon. Like many athletes who are under the public’s watchful eye, the fighter has been relatively silent about the obstacles she’s overcome. Now, Rousey is finally speaking out about those recent personal tragedies.

Rough and Tumble Beginnings

Ronda Rousey was born in Riverside, California, in 1987. Named after her father, she was a fighter from the very beginning. She was the youngest of three daughters born to AnnMaria De Mars and Ron Rousey. While she was still in elementary school, the family left their California home and moved to rural North Dakota.

The move ultimately led to the first major tragedy in Ronda’s life. She and her father had taken up sledding after the move, happily taking advantage of the winter conditions they never got to experience in California. Unfortunately, the fun hobby ended in tragedy.

The Sledding Accident That Changed Everything

Ronda’s father had retired when the family moved from California to North Dakota, and he took Ronda on a sledding adventure to make the most of the winter weather. He hit a snow-covered log while sledding and crashed, landing headfirst on the ground. He was taken to the hospital and diagnosed with spinal injuries.

Doctors operated on his neck and back, and Ronda’s life became confined to the hospital. She anxiously waited for her father to recover, but the prognosis was not good. Doctors said that as his spine further disintegrated, it would eventually lead to full-body paralysis.

A Devastated Family

After partially recovering and learning of his long-term medical prognosis, Ron Rousey made a decision that would forever have an impact on his daughter. Ronda and her sister were watching cartoons when their father entered the room, gave them both a hug and left, never to return.

Ron Rousey got into his Ford Bronco and drove to a pond the family visited frequently. It was the spot he chose to take his own life by carbon monoxide poisoning. At the time of her father’s death, Ronda was only 8 years old. The family was devastated, but her mother remained strong for her three daughters.

A Judo Prodigy (and More)

Ronda’s mother AnnMaria was a judo prodigy as a child and teen. She won numerous international tournaments in the sport. In college, AnnMaria continued to succeed, but it was in the classroom. She then surprisingly came out of retirement in 1984 to win the World Judo Championships .

AnnMaria was such a gifted student that she began attending college at the young age of 16 and was working on her MBA by age 19. After completing her MBA, Ronda’s mother then began to work on a Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside, in educational psychology.

An Early Brush with Death

AnnMaria’s grittiness gleaned from years of judo and schooling gave her the skills necessary to handle the tragedies her family had to endure. The list of tragedies almost included Ronda dying during her birth.

Her umbilical cord became wrapped around her neck during delivery, depriving her of oxygen and nearly resulting in her death. Ronda did suffer brain damage as a result. Up until the age of six, she barely spoke, and her words were jumbled when she did speak. As a result, she was placed in special education classes in school.

Leaving North Dakota

Ronda’s family moved to North Dakota so she could be near a team of talented speech therapists. She was eventually diagnosed with a condition called apraxia, which affects the motor programming system for speech. It’s a relatively unknown condition.

As Ronda worked with the team of speech therapists, her mother decided to move the family back to Southern California and away from the place where they had experienced so much hardship. The move back to Southern California ended up exposing Ronda to the sport of judo.

The Beginning of a Journey

Ronda has said that having a judo world champion as a mother made it easier for her to excel at the sport. She even told the media that her mother jumping on her bed and attacking her with armbars helped develop her skills.

Ronda took lessons every day, and her confidence began to increase, even in her schoolwork. Everything was finally starting to come together for Ronda. At only 16, she moved away from the comfort of her home in Southern California to train in judo in Massachusetts.

The Athens Olympics

Ronda wanted to be a judo world champion just like her mother, and she didn’t intend to stop at anything to reach her goal. She became one of the country’s top judo talents after settling into her life in Massachusetts. Ronda’s journey to greatness had begun.

The 2004 Olympics were held in the place of their origin: Athens, Greece. At the age of 17, Ronda got her first taste of the global spotlight when she represented her country in the sport her mother excelled in when she was young. Despite her nearly fatal birth, her father’s death and two long-distance move, Ronda had persevered.

Disappointment in Greece

Ronda was the youngest judo participant to ever compete in the Olympics. Still a teenager, she was forced to overcome further obstacles as a result of her performance in the Olympics. She was overmatched by her more experienced opponents and finished in ninth place.

Ronda refused to let 2004 end without winning any medals, however. She had one last chance to win one when she competed in Budapest, Hungary, at the 2004 World Junior Judo Championships. She beat out all the competition at the event, taking first place and winning the gold medal.

American Judoka Legend

As Ronda prepared for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, she excelled in the international judo circuit. She became the first female in almost 10 years to win an A-level tournament in judo when she took the gold medal at the Birmingham World Cup in Great Britain.

Ronda’s success continued at the 2007 Pan American Games, where she again won a gold medal. Earlier in the year, she won the silver medal at the World Judo Championships. Ronda’s success was leading her to the 2008 Olympics in China, where her plan was to solidify herself as an American judoka legend.

Winning the Bronze Medal

When she arrived in Beijing for the 2004 Olympics, Ronda was determined not to forget her disappointing experience four years earlier in Greece. Her goal was to win a medal, something no other US female judoka had done since judo became an Olympic sport in 1992. She ended up winning five of her matches while competing in the 70 kg division.

Ronda’s one loss prevented her from competing for the gold, but she was determined not to come home empty-handed. She defeated Annett Boehm of Germany to claim the bronze medal. Unfortunately, Ronda’s triumph quickly led to hardship.

From Success to Financial Strain

After winning the bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics, Ronda returned home to California and retired from judo. She assumed Olympic success would improve her financial situation, but it didn’t. She left her mother’s home in California to figure things out with no money and no plan.

She needed a job, so she became a cocktail waitress at the Redwood Bar and Grill, a pirate-themed bar in Los Angeles. At the time, Ronda shared a small apartment with a friend and drove a car that didn’t even have air conditioning (in California!).

Living in Her Car

During this time in her life, money was extremely tight for Ronda. Her diet often consisted of ramen noodles served cold because the hot water had been shut off in her apartment. Both cigarettes and marijuana became a regular part of her routine. For a time, she even lived in her car.

While she admitted to the Los Angeles Daily News that things got pretty bad for her, she also insisted she never felt sorry for herself. A new challenge soon entered her life when she landed a job at 24 Hour Fitness and discovered MMA.

MMA to the Rescue

While she worked at 24 Hour Fitness, Ronda began training in mixed martial arts. Fighting had always been in her DNA, and she soon developed an obsession with the sport. With her background in judo, the transition to MMA came easy, but she still had a lot of training to do in those early days.

Ronda told Esquire that every spare moment of thought in those days circled back to fighting. She said she liked to shadow box with droplets of water in the shower, just so she could use every moment she had to improve. After training for months, Ronda made her MMA debut.

Journey to the Top of Women’s MMA

Ronda defeated her first MMA opponent, Hayden Munoz, in 23 seconds using an armbar. The move became synonymous with Ronda, as she also used it to defeat her next two opponents. With an undefeated 3-0 record as an amateur, she faced a dilemma.

There wasn’t much money to be made in women’s combat sports at the time. At the time, there weren’t any women’s divisions in the UFC. If Ronda wanted to turn pro, she would have to fight for smaller promotions or take up boxing instead. Faced with trying to figure out a way to make a living with MMA, Ronda was at a crossroads.

Queen of Combat

Ronda Rousey went pro in 2011 and signed with King of the Cage. It was a big break for her. King of the Cage wasn’t a well-known promotion at the time, but it was a starting point. Ronda only needed 25 seconds to subdue her opponent via armbar in her professional debut.

She continued to dominate her opponents and win in quick succession throughout 2012. At that point, she was quickly becoming the face of women’s combat sports. Challengers lined up to face her, but they ended up falling quickly to Ronda’s patented armbar submission.

Becoming a UFC Champion

Ronda’s fame grew along with her success inside the cage. She began to get booked on TV shows like Conan and made appearances on ESPN. Eventually, rumors began to spread that the UFC was considering signing Ronda as its first-ever female fighter.

In 2011, UFC President Dana White said fans would never see women in the UFC. A year later, White changed his tune and signed Ronda as the organization’s first female fighter. The Strikeforce bantamweight championship was absorbed by the company and became the UFC bantamweight title, making Rousey the first-ever female UFC champion.

In the Global Spotlight

Ronda wasted no time becoming the sport’s biggest star. Her UFC career began with six straight title defenses, and she often defeated her opponents early in the fight. Of her six title defenses, she only spent 1,077 seconds in the cage. That’s approximately $1,002 for every second she fought.

As her success in the cage continued, her superstardom outside of it grew as well. Hollywood wanted her in movies, fans adored her and TV shows began to outbid one another to get her booked. Rousey even appeared on the cover of ESPN the Magazine’s 2012 Body Issue.

Loss to Holly Holm

No athlete remains on top forever, and Ronda was no exception. The only questions were when it would happen and how far the downfall would be. She was slated to defend her title for the seventh time in 2015, and her opponent was Holly Holm.

Holm had a strong boxing background, something that was lacking in Ronda’s repertoire of skills. Her weakness in this area was balanced by her takedown and submission skills. If Ronda could get Holm on the ground, she could utilize her armbar and hopefully secure another successful defense of her championship.

Ronda Rousey Tastes Defeat

The fight with Holly Holm never went to ground level, so Ronda never got a chance to use her strongest tactics. Instead, she took a steady barrage of strikes to the face. Holm finally connected with a kick to Ronda’s face and neck that sent her to the canvas. As a result, she defeated Ronda in a shocking upset.

As often happens, Ronda’s perfect record and unblemished career were both gone in an instant. After the loss and the beating she took, Ronda wasn’t medically cleared to fight again for three months, but it was nine months before she ever stepped back in the cage to fight again.

Facing Amanda Nunes

Ronda took nearly a year off before announcing her comeback fight against Amanda Nunes. In the build-up to the fight, she was criticized for taking time away from the spotlight after the loss to Holm. Some felt that if she was willing to put herself out there to attract more attention, then she should still be willing to do so even after suffering a loss.

Some even labeled Ronda a poor sport for the way she handled her first loss. She admitted she spent much of the year coming to terms with the loss, and she hoped a victorious comeback would help.

Second Straight Loss

Ronda faced then-champion Amanda Nunes on December 30, 2016, and the fight only lasted 48 seconds. Nunes unleashed a torrent of punches and never let up. The referee was forced to call the fight. After her second straight loss, Ronda disappeared again into the shadows and silence.

As the door to her MMA career began to close, another one opened. A fan of WWE since she was a kid, Ronda had been making appearances for the organization since 2014. Fans and detractors alike had noted her ability when she competed in the ring. WWE provided a unique opportunity for Ronda.

Becoming a WWE Star

Ronda told Ellen DeGeneres that she had suicidal thoughts following her loss to Holly Holm. She also had to deal with rumors regarding the man she was dating, fellow UFC fighter Travis Brown, as he was under investigation for allegations of domestic abuse.

With so much going on in her life at the time, Ronda signed a full-time deal with WWE in 2017. Her first official match with the organization was at WrestleMania 34 . After making her debut, she won her first WWE women’s title and carried it all the way to WrestleMania 35 .

Making Movies, Making Money

Ronda quickly rose to the top of WWE and became one of the most popular entertainers in the entire industry. She had found a new passion, but she isn’t someone who can limit herself to just one thing. What does that mean? Ronda decided to put her acting skills to the test.

She started building her acting career with roles in films such as The Expendables and Furious 7 . It might seem like a bit much to train for a new WWE career while taking on acting roles, but it was the perfect challenge for someone like Ronda Rousey.

Publishing Her First Book

Ronda sought to achieve success in yet another field when she released her book, My Fight/Your Fight, in 2015. Always a fighter in everything she does, she perfectly encapsulates the saying “It’s not how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you get up.”

Everything Ronda experienced helped form her into the champion she became. The loss of her father, living in her car, the way her UFC career ended — all these challenges led her to become the person she is. Without the hardships she endured, she might not have ever achieved success.

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition

Without her struggles, Ronda Rousey never would have become the greatest female fighter in MMA history. She again made history in 2015 when she became the first female athlete to co-host SportsCenter . Still not enough? The next year, she appeared on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.

Of course, Ronda’s motivation for appearing on the cover was more than money, attention or the fame it brought. She noted in her book that her ex-boyfriend had taken explicit photos of her without her consent or knowledge, and she had to go to great lengths to delete them.

Time to Start a Family

Ronda was forced to attack her ex to recover the explicit photos. She obtained a hard drive and phone where they were stored and deleted them. She wanted to take the power back from that experience, however, which is what led her to pose for the magazine.

Moving on from that disaster, Ronda and Travis Browne became engaged in 2017 and married that same year in Hawaii. At one point, domestic abuse allegations against Browne made him one of the most hated fighters in the UFC, but that didn’t matter to Ronda. She considers him the love of her life.

A Bright Path Ahead

Ronda Rousey has a net worth of $12 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth , and that number should continue to grow. Although she is no longer a UFC fighter, she isn’t running short on ways to bring in money, whether it’s from endorsement deals or her career as an actress.

Not being in the UFC should also help add longevity to whatever she chooses to do as well. Even outside the UFC, Ronda is and always has been a fighter. Whether it’s working to overcome adversity or competing inside the octagon, she is synonymous with the toughness of a fighter.

A Total Diva

After losing the WWE RAW Women’s Championship at WrestleMania 35 , Ronda Rousey took a hiatus from competing inside a WWE ring. She has remained involved with the organization, however, and was announced as the newest cast member of WWE’s reality TV program, Total Divas , for its ninth season.

Total Divas follows the lives of the women of WWE. Ronda’s private life is on full display on the show, which began airing her season on October 1, 2019. She has spoken openly on the show about her desire to have a baby and start a family.

Ronda Rousey on 9-1-1

In 2019, Ronda Rousey landed a role in the Fox drama 9-1-1 . She plays Lena Bosko, a firefighter with the Los Angeles Fire Department who first appears in season three. She has learned during the filming of the show that acting carries its share of physical risk as well.

She nearly lost a finger due to a freak accident on set, although she initially thought her injury was no big deal. There’s a lesson there about Ronda’s character. We’re certain that no matter what she does now, she will infuse it with her signature intensity and dedication.

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[Resolved] Change Drive Letter and Paths Greyed Out Windows 10

When connecting an external drive to Windows PC, many users encounter the “ change drive letter and paths greyed out” issue. Why they can’t change drive letter? How to fix it? Now, let’s explore the answers together with MiniTool Partition Wizard .

After investigating extensive user reports, we found the “change drive letter and paths greyed out” issue often occurs when they connect an external drive like USB to Windows. Here is a true example from the Microsoft forum:

I have a drive that has a lot of information on it that I need. A user left our company and all of his files are on this drive. When I plug the drive in it loads the drivers and shows up just fine in Disk Management (shown below), but not in Computer. I want to read the drive on the computer. So I think, ok, I’ll just add a drive letter but that option is greyed out. Is there a way to get this drive accessible without formatting? https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums

If you are also facing the issue, keep reading the following part.

What Causes the “Change Drive Letter and Paths Greyed Out” Issue

Why you can’t change drive letter and paths Windows 10? According to a survey, the main reason behind the issue is that you are using a Mac formatted drive on Windows. It’s known that the mac hard drive is formatted to an HFS+ file system that can’t be accessed on a Windows PC. Usually, this situation often appears on an external storage device.

On an internal hard drive, the following situations may cause you can’t change drive letter and paths Windows 10.

• You are changing a system partition or a boot partition’s drive letter. Usually, the system partition was assigned with C by default.
• The drive letter you are trying to change might be in use. In this case, you can close all running programs and try again.
• The drive letter has already been used by some external storage device.

Top recommendation: Ext4 vs NTFS vs HFS+: Differences and Which One Should You Use

Before You Do: Recover Data from the Hard Drive

If you are anxious to access the data on the external drive, we highly recommend you use MiniTool Partition Wizard. It is a multifunctional partition manager that focuses on data recovery , file system conversion, disk benchmark, and OS migration . With this powerful tool, you can recover data from a mac formatted drive.

Here’s how to use MiniTool Partition Wizard to recover data from an HFS+ drive.

MiniTool Partition Wizard Demo Click to Download 100% Clean & Safe

Step 1. Connect your external drive to the Windows computer.

Step 2.  Launch the program to enter its main interface, click on Data Recovery on the top toolbar, and select the drive you just connected and click on Scan .

Step 3.  Then you need to wait for a while. Once the scan completes, tick the checkboxes next to the needed files and click on the  Save  button. 

Step 4.  Select a directory to save the needed files and click on  OK . Here we recommend you save the recovered files to another drive. Or, the unrecovered data could be overwritten.

Now, you can access the data from the mac formatted drive. Here comes another problem: how to do it if you can’t change the drive letter? Let’s go on.

How to Do If You Can’t Change Drive Letter

If you are still troubled by the “change drive letter and paths greyed out Windows 10” issue, you can try the following methods.

Method 1. Connect the Drive to a Supported Operating System

As mentioned above, the main reason for the change drive letter and paths greyed out error is due to an unsupported operating system. So, the easiest and direct way is to use the drive on a Mac or other supported computer. If not, you won’t be able to access its data on Windows unless you use a professional data recovery tool or format it to a supported file system.

Method 2. Format Mac Hard Drive on PC

If you don’t have a Mac computer, then you may consider formatting the drive to NTFS/FAT32 and assign a letter. How to format a Mac hard drive on Windows? Microsoft provides some built-in tools that can be used to format a hard drive, including Diskpart, Disk Management, and File Explorer.

Here we take Diskpart for example:

Using Diskpart:

Step 1. If you are using an external drive, make sure you connected it to the computer.

Step 2.  Press  Win + R  keys to open the  Run  dialog box, and then type  diskpart  in the box and hit  Enter .

Step 2.  In the Diskpart window, type the following commands one by one and hit  Enter  after each typing. Once you finished the command below, your drive should be formatted to NTFS or FAT32

• select disk * (replace * with the number of your connected drive)
• list partition
• select partition 1 (the 1 represents the partition you want to format)
• format fs=ntfs quick or format fs=fat32 quick

Step 3. Proceed with the following commands if you want to assign a drive letter for the drive.

• Select disk 1 (the 1 represents the disk you want to create a partition in)
• create partition primary size=x  (x represents the extended partition size in MB)
• assign letter=E (replace E with the letter you want to assign for the drive)

Diskpart helps you format hard drive and create partitions. Sometimes, however, you may encounter the “ no usable free extent could be found ” and “ Virtual Disk Service Error ” and while using Diskpart. In addition, this tool can’t help you format a drive larger than 64GB to FAT32. To format a drive quickly and safely, we recommend you use MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Using MiniTool Partition Wizard:

Compared with the Windows built-in tools, MiniTool Partition Wizard makes a great breakthrough on partition management. It can help you format a large drive, change drive letter , change cluster size, etc.

MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Click to Download 100% Clean & Safe

Sep 1.  Connect your storage drive to the computer and launch MiniTool Partition Wizard to enter its main interface.

Step 2.  Select the connected drive from the disk map and click on  Format Partition  from the left pane.

Step 3.  In the pop-up window, select  NTFS/FAT32/exFAT  or other file system based on your demands and click on  OK .

Step 4.  Click on  Apply  to execute the formatting operation.

Step 5. If you want to assign a letter to a partition, you can select the drive from the disk map and click on Change Drive Letter.

Step 6. Select a drive letter from the drop-down menu, and click on OK and Apply to execute it.

You may also be interested in how long does it take to format a hard drive .

Method 3. Convert MBR to GPT

On the Microsoft forum, some users reported that they can change drive letters successfully after converting an MBR disk to GPT. Here you may have a try. How to convert MBR to GPT without data loss ? MiniTool Partition Wizard can make it!

Step 1. In the main interface, select the connected drive from disk map and click on Convert MBR Disk to GPT Disk from the left pane.

Step 2. Click on Apply to execute the pending operation. Once done, you can check if you can change the drive letter.

I encountered the “change drive letter and paths greyed out Windows 10” error. Some people said this is because the drive is Mac formatted. How to access my data? How to format Mac hard drive on PC? I found the answers in this post. Click to Tweet

What’s Your Opinion

Here comes the end of this post. If you are eager to access the data on a Mac formatted drive, you can use MiniTool Partition Wizard first to recover it. In addition, this post also tells you how to format a Mac hard drive on Windows.

If you have better ideas on the “change drive letter and paths greyed out Windows 10” subject, you can write them in the comment area. For any questions or suggestions on the MiniTool program, you send us an email to [email protected]

Change Drive Letter and Paths Greyed Out FAQ

• Press Win + R keys to open the Run dialog box, and then type  msc in the text box and click on  OK  to open Disk Management .
• Right-click the drive and select the Change Drive Letter and Paths
• Click on Change and select a drive letter from the drop-down menu, and click on OK .
• Click on Yes to confirm the operation.

After investigating extensive user reports, we summarize 7 applicable methods to fix the Parameter Is Incorrect error:

• Compress these large files
• Convert FAT32 to NTFS
• Format your storage device to NTFS
• Replace your hard drive with a larger one
• Check file system errors
• Connect your external drive to another different computer
• Update your USB and Disk Drive drivers

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• Partition Windows 10

Change Drive Letter and Paths Greyed Out in Windows 10 [Solved]

This article will help you to fix the Change Drive Letter and Path greyed out in Windows 10/8/7 problem. Read on to know why it happens and how to solve it effectively.

The Change Drive Letter and Paths option in Windows Disk Management

Windows Disk Management is a built-in tool for Windows users to manage the hard disk partitions. In Windows 10, you can open it by clicking on Start and typing in diskmgmt.msc and press Enter key, or right-clicking This PC on the desktop and choosing Manage -> Disk Management . The Disk Management allows you to create/delete/format partition or volume, extend/shrink volume, change drive letter for partitions or volumes, and so on. When you want to change anything on a partition or volume, right-click it, and then, select the option which you need.

When you right-click a partition and you can see an option Change Drive Letter and Paths, which is used for changing drive letter of an internal/external hard drive, or assigning drive letter to a drive which doesn’t have a drive letter.

For example, if you want to assign or change the drive letter for a disk or partition, right-click on it first, choose Change Drive Letter and Paths .

Then, it will pop up a window with the current drive letter, click Change... , if you are going to assign a drive letter, here you need to click Add...

After that, you should choose the new drive letter from the drop list, and then, click OK .

As so far, change drive letter or assign drive letter seems so easy with the Change Drive Letter and Paths option in Windows Disk Management. However, you may face a common problem: Change Drive Letter and Paths greyed out in Windows 10/8/7, like the following screenshot:

Apparently, the Windows could not assign a drive letter to a partition. Here you may confuse why it happens and want to know how to fix it desperately. Fortunately, this article will explain the why and give you a solution for the problem.

Why the Change Drive Letter and Paths greyed out Windows 10?

The Change Drive Letter and Paths option greyed out can occur for a few reasons:

The volume is not formatted in FAT or NTFS. For example, if you are attaching a disk from a Mac computer, you will not be able to change the drive letter in Windows unless you format the drive to the FAT or NTFS file system to compatible with Windows OS.

The drive is write-protected. If the drive is set to read-only, then you must remove the write protection from the drive first, otherwise, the Change Drive Letter and Paths should be greyed out.

How to fix Change Drive Letter and Paths greyed out in Windows 10/8/7?

If there is no data on the volume or you do not need any of the data on the volume, the question can be fixed simply. Just right-click the volume, select the only available option Delete Volume to delete the volume, and then, right-click it and create a new simple volume, and then, you will be able to change the drive letter.

Otherwise, you need a third-party software to help you to fix the Change Drive Letter and Paths greyed out in Windows Disk Management. AOMEI Partition Assistant is such a great partition manager that can easily help you change drive letter for partition or volume.

Step 1 . Free downloard AOMEI Partition Assistant, install it on your Windows 10/8/7 computer. Launch it.

Step 2 . It will display you the main interface concluding all disks on your PC. Right-click the partition that you need to change drive letter, in the pop-up menu, select Advanced -> Change Drive Letter .

Step 3 . It will pop up a small window where you can choose a new drive letter in the list of the drop-down menu. Choose one and click OK .

Step 4 . When you back to the main interface, click Apply -> Proceed to execute the task.

When the Change Drive Letter and Paths greyed out in Windows 10/8/7’s Disk Management, AOMEI Partition Assistant should be the best alternative that can help you change drive letter successful. Besides, you can upgrade to Professional Edition to get more advanced features like Allocate Free Space, Quick Partition, Command Line, etc.

Extended Content

Actually, sometimes, you may meet the problem that all options on the Disk Management are greyed out, and you can do nothing help. When you get into this trouble, that may be caused by the system disk error. And what you can do is to check and repair system disk error.

1. Launch AOMEI Partition Assistant and right-click the system partition, select Advanced >  Check Partition .

2. Select the way of checking errors to perform, click OK.

Let AOMEI Partition Assistant automatically check partition and fix errors in this partition. If this operation still can’t solve your problem, you can try to perform a system restore (if you backed system up before) or system re-installation to repair Disk Management tool. 

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What to Do When the Change Drive Letter and Paths Option Is Greyed Out

Table of Contents

Reasons Why Change Drive Letter and Paths May Be Greyed Out

Knowing why the Change Drive Letter and Paths option is greyed out can help you determine which fix is appropriate, as well as help you pick the best option to secure your data.

Some things that can lead to a greyed out Change Drive Letter and Paths option are:

How to Fix the Change Drive Letter and Paths Option Greyed Out Issue

There are several ways to diagnose a greyed out Change Drive Letter and Paths option. In the worst-case scenario, you will need to format the drive for the option to become accessible. That’s why, it’s best to back up all your important data from the drive, especially if the drive exhibits symptoms of logical damage.

If the drive works flawlessly, you can simply copy the required files to a safe location. But, in case you suspect the disk is logically damaged, or you’re unable to access it in Windows Explorer, you’ll need to create a disk image of the drive. A disk image is essentially a soft copy of the entire drive. You can use it to restore your existing data, and even recover deleted files.

We recommend you use Disk Drill to create the disk image, since it’s compatible with all types of storage drives and works with Windows, Linux, and macOS file systems. You can also mount the disk image in Disk Drill and use it to recover existing, as well as deleted files .

Here’s how to create a disk image (backup) of your drive using Disk Drill:

• Download and install Disk Drill.
• Open Disk Drill, and go to Drive Backup under Extra Tools .

• Disk Drill will create the disk image.

Once your files are secured, you can proceed to fix the Change Drive Letter and Paths option not available issue.

Method 1: Run Disk Management as an Administrator

All user accounts on your PC do not have the same privileges. To ensure you have the highest level of access, run Disk Management using an Administrator account. Here’s how to do this:

• Click on the Start button or press the Windows key.

• On the log in screen, select the Administrator user account or any account that has Administrator level access and sign in using that.
• Search for “disk management” in Windows Search ( Windows Key + S ). Click on Create and format hard disk partitions from the search results.

Method 2: Connect the Drive to a Mac

If your drive worked properly on macOS, it’s best to reconnect it to a Mac and format it to a Windows-recognized file system. You can also take this chance to copy any important files to another location.

Once you’ve connected your drive to a Mac, format it to FAT32, and it should work properly with Windows. Here’s how to format the drive in macOS:

• Go to Finder > Go > Utilities > Disk Utility . You can also search for “Disk Utility” in macOS’ Spotlight Search ( Command + Spacebar ).

• Once the drive has been formatted, reconnect it to your Windows PC. The Change Drive Letter and Paths option should no longer be greyed out.

Method 3: Change the Drive Letter Using the Command Prompt

Whether you’re using an ancient version of Windows, or the relatively newer Windows 7/8/8/1/10/11, you can force Windows to perform drive letter assignment. How? Well, using Diskpart , a command-line tool that can be run using the Command Prompt.

Here’s what the process looks like:

• Search for “cmd” in Windows Search ( Windows Key + S ). Right-click on Command Prompt > Run as administrator .

• Identify the partition whose drive letter you wish to change. You can do this by looking at the values in the Size and Fs (file system) fields.

• Windows will assign the requested drive letter.

Method 4: Format the Drive

If all else fails, you’ll need to format the drive in order to fix a greyed out Change Drive Letter and Paths option. Formatting will clean the disk and rewrite the file system to your drive, giving you a fresh start. It can also fix minor logical issues on the drive.

Here’s how you can format a drive in Windows:

• Press Windows Key + R to open the Run app. Type diskmgmt.msc in the text box and press Enter.

• Windows will format the drive.

How to Recover Data From a Drive that You Had to Format

If you created a disk image of your drive, your’e good to go and we’ll describe how you can recover data from it. If you didn’t, and had to format your drive, you can still scan the drive directly and recover data, provided the Quick Format option was enabled while formatting. But, you may not be able to recover all your data, especially if you wrote new files to the drive after formatting it.

For our tutorial, we’ll use Disk Drill to perform data recovery as it’s easy to use, has a proven track record, and will work with your drive regardless of its file system and manufacturer. It can also recover data from drives that are RAW, i.e., have no file system at all. On Windows, you can take advantage of Disk Drill’s free trial that lets you recover up to 500 MB of files for free.

Let’s see what the data recovery process looks like in Disk Drill:

• Download Disk Drill if you didn’t earlier.
• Open Disk Drill and ensure you’re on the Storage Devices screen. Skip the next step if you didn’t create a disk image earlier.

• Disk Drill will recover the selected files.

What To Do If You Encountered “Can’t Change Drive Letter Parameter Is Incorrect”

A common error that you may face when attempting to change the drive letter of a disk or partition, is the “Parameter is incorrect” message.

Use one of these methods to combat this error:

• Use CHKDSK to resolve possible file system errors and bad sectors on the drive.
• Convert the partition to NTFS , if it is RAW.
• Update outdated drivers to ensure the best possible communication between your drive and Windows.

Often, a greyed out Change Drive Letter and Paths option is a result of an incompatible file system or insufficient user account permissions. But, since logical and physical damage can also lead to the issue, it’s best to back up all important files from the drive as soon as you can. Thereafter, you can proceed to resolve the problem using the methods described above.

Importantly, do not attempt DIY data recovery on a drive that’s physically damaged. It’s best to contact a professional data recovery service in such a case.

How do I change the drive letter and path?

Does changing the drive letter affect programs, how do i force a drive letter to be assigned, how long does it take to change a drive letter.

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Change a drive letter

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Applies To: Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019, and Windows Server 2016

If you want to change a drive letter assigned to a drive, or you have a drive that doesn't yet have a drive letter, use Disk Management to change it. You can also mount the drive in an empty folder so that it appears as a folder. For more information, see Mount a drive in a folder .

If you change the drive letter of a drive that already contains Windows or apps, apps might have trouble running or finding the drive. We suggest not changing the drive letter of a drive that already contains Windows or apps.

The following steps show how to change the drive letter.

Open Disk Management with administrator permissions.

In Disk Management, select and hold (or right-click) the volume on which you want to change or add a drive letter and select Change Drive Letter and Paths .

If you don't see the Change Drive Letter and Paths option or it's grayed out, the volume either isn't ready to receive a drive letter or it's unallocated and needs to be initialized . It might also be that the drive isn't accessible, which is the case with EFI system partitions and recovery partitions. If you've confirmed that your volume is formatted with a drive letter that you can access but you're still unable to change it, that's beyond the scope of this article. We suggest contacting Microsoft Support or the manufacturer of your PC for more help.

To change the drive letter, select Change . To add a drive letter if the drive doesn't already have one, select Add .

Select the new drive letter and choose OK . Then select Yes when prompted about how programs that rely on the drive letter might not run correctly.

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Drive letters are not available in "Change Drive Letter and Paths"

My semi-permanent USB drive died, so I copied all the files to a replacement. Now I would like to assign the new drive the same drive letter as the old, so I don't have to change the path in every program and shortcut that points to it. Unfortunately, the drive letter (F) is not available in the list of options:

The other drives on the system are C D G (and E is for the DVD-ROM), so it's not missing because it's in use. I've rebooted multiple times, and completely uninstalled the non-existent drive using USBDeview , but its drive letter is still unavailable.

• drive-letter

• F is missing because it is assigned to anther drive, –  Moab Nov 14, 2022 at 18:54
• @Moab The drive it was assigned to no longer exists –  endolith Nov 14, 2022 at 18:55
• I believe Windows thinks it exists. I see this here with internal drives –  John Nov 14, 2022 at 18:57
• 1 @John - "I believe Windows thinks it exists." - So how does the author resolve their problem? If the drive is no longer installed in the system the drive letter should be available. –  Ramhound Nov 14, 2022 at 19:00
• I just had to use a new Letter. The old one could not be used –  John Nov 14, 2022 at 19:01

2 Answers 2

Open CMD command prompt as administrator > type "mountvol /r" without quotes, then press [enter]. Reboot and try again.

The command mountvol /r will remove drive letters for previously connected drives.

The drive letter may be assigned to a different drive, even if it's not shown in Disk Management or diskpart . Try just entering the drive letter into a File Explorer to verify this.

In my case, the problem was caused by Google Drive being assigned to drive G, which was already in use, so after I removed the old USB stick and rebooted, Google Drive gobbled up the next available letter F for its virtual drive. It allows this to be changed in the settings, though:

which then made the letter available in "Change Drive Letter or Path" again.

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Not the answer you're looking for browse other questions tagged windows windows-10 hard-drive drive-letter ..

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• Partition Disk

[Solved] Windows 10/11 Not Assigning Drive Letter Automatically?

What is drive letter.

A drive letter is a single alphabetic character ranging from A to Z that is used to designate a storage device in DOS (Disk Operating System) and Windows systems. In general, every drive in your system will be assigned a unique drive letter, making it easier to identify and locate.

About Windows Not Assigning Drive Letter Automatically

When you are attempting to connect a USB flash drive or other external storage device to the computer, your Windows will always automatically assign a drive letter to its partition. However, this process will not always succeed and sometimes you may notice Windows cannot assign drive letter to partition on the connected disk.

The “Windows 10/Windows 11 not assigning drive letter” issue can happen due to various reasons, such as the incompatible file system, outdated Windows, virus infection, and so on. To solve this issue, some effective methods are listed in this post. Simply follow them to sort out your problem if you face the same issue.

Note: Before troubleshooting the issue with advanced solutions, you’d better make sure that you have a proper Windows version supporting automatically assigning drive letters and that the file system of the connected drive is compatible with your computer. Besides, you can run a specified scan to check if there is a virus preventing Windows from assigning drive letters.

Please don’t worry if you don’t know how to format hard drive on Windows 11. This page shows you some effective disk formatting methods.

Method 1: Start the Virtual Disk Service

The Virtual Disk service plays an important role in the disk management of your computer. If it is disabled, certain disk problems may come out, including the “Windows not assigning drive letter” issue. Therefore, once you run into this issue, you’d better check if the Virtual Disk service is enabled. If not, follow the guide below to start it.

Tip: If the service has been started, you can try right-clicking it and select Restart to re-enable it. This may sometimes help solve problems.

Step 1 : Press Windows + R to open the Run dialog.

Step 2 : Type services.msc in the text box and then click OK to enter the Services window.

Step 3 : Scroll down to find Virtual Disk in the right panel. Then right-click this service and select Properties .

Step 4 : In the next window, set Startup type as Automatic . Then click the Start button to run this service.

Step 5 : At last, click Apply and OK to save the changes. You can now safely eject the external hard drive from your PC and then reconnect it to see if the “Windows 10 not assigning drive letter” issue persists.

Further reading:

If you are unable to start the Virtual Disk service in the Services app, then you can try the following instructions.

• Type cmd in the Run dialog box.
• Press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open Command Prompt with administrative privileges.
• Type sc query vds and then press Enter to obtain and display detailed information about the Virtual Disk
• If the state is STOPPED , type net start vds and press Enter to enable this service.
• After that, reconnect the device to see if it has a drive letter.

Method 2: Enable Automatic Mounting of New Volumes

When you connect an external hard drive to your computer, the system will automatically mount the added drive and assign a drive letter to it by default with the Automatic mounting of new volumes ( automount ) feature. If you disable this feature accidentally, you are likely to find Windows 10 or Windows 11 not assigning drive letter when you connect a new drive to the PC.

Tip: If you want to learn more about disabling or enabling automount, you can pay attention to this post: How to Disable or Enable Auto-Mounting of New Disks and Drives .

In this case, you can try to get rid of the “Windows not assigning drive letter” issue by enabling automount. Here’s a full guide on how to do this.

Step 1 : Run Command Prompt as an administrator.

Step 2 : Type diskpart and press Enter to open the Diskpart utility.

Step 3 : After that, type automount and press Enter to check the status of the automount feature.

Step 4 : If a message saying “ Automatic mounting of new volumes disabled ” shows up on the screen, you should then type automount enable and press Enter to execute this command.

Step 5 : Exit Command Prompt and connect the external drive back to your PC to check if your Windows will automatically assign a drive letter.

Method 3: Disable Hidden and No Default Drive Letter

If the Hidden and No Default Drive Letter attributes are enabled, you may experience the “Windows 11 or Windows 10 not assigning drive letter” issue as well. On this occasion, you can attempt to repair this issue by disabling the specific attributes. To do this, follow the steps below.

Step 1 : Make sure the problematic storage device is connected to your computer. Then run Command Prompt as an administrator.

Step 2 : In the elevated Command Prompt window, type diskpart and press Enter .

Step 3 : After that, type the following commands one by one and press Enter after each to check the related attributes of the target drive.

• select disk N ( N represents the disk number of the connected storage device)
• list partition
• select partition X (Replace X with the number of the partition on the storage device)
• attributes volume

Step 4 : If the Hidden and No Default Drive Letter attributes show Yes , you should execute the following commands to disable them.

• attributes volume clear Hidden
• attributes volume clear NoDefaultDriveLetter

Step 5 : Once done, close Command Prompt and restart your PC to check if the “Windows not assigning drive letter” issue disappears.

Method 4: Assign the Drive Letter Manually

If Windows cannot assign drive letter to partition automatically yet after you apply the above methods, you can try assigning a drive letter manually. In this part, this post summarizes several ways that can help you complete the drive letter assignment. Just pick one according to your preference.

Way 1: Via Disk Management

Disk Management is a Windows built-in utility that helps you do basic management of your partitions and disks including adding or changing a drive letter. To assign a drive letter manually with Disk Management, you can follow the given steps.

Step 1 : Right-click the Start icon and select Disk Management .

Step 2 : Right-click the partition on the connected disk. Then select Change Drive Letter and Paths .

Step 3 : In the pop-up window, click the Add button to continue.

Step 4 : Select Assign the following drive letter and then choose a suitable drive letter from the drop-down menu.

Step 5 : After that, click OK to save the change.

Way 2: Via Diskpart

Diskpart is also a useful tool that can help you assign a drive letter to your partition. The following are details about this operation.

Step 1 : Open the Run dialog. Then type diskpart in the text box and press Enter to run Diskpart.

Step 2 : To assign a drive letter, you should run the following commands one by one.

• select disk N ( N refers to the disk number of the connected disk)
• select partition X ( X is the number of the partition on the target disk)
• assign letter=G (You can replace G with the drive letter you prefer)

Tip: In addition to the above commands, you can try assigning the drive with these commands as well:

• list volume
• select volume * ( * represents the number of the target partition)
• assign letter=G

Diskpart Unassign Drive Letter in Windows 11/10 [Full Guide]

Way 3: Via MiniTool Partition Wizard

Although both Disk Management and Diskpart are helpful utilities allowing you to assign a drive letter effectively, they may randomly trouble you with unexpected issues, such as Change Drive Letter and Paths greyed out , Diskpart has encountered an error , and so on. In such cases, it’s recommended that you take advantage of third-party disk partition software.

As for this, MiniTool Partition Wizard is a great choice. It’s a professional partition manager that provides a wide range of features related to partitions and disks. For instance, it enables you to create/format/resize partitions, change the drive letter, recover data/partitions, migrate OS to SSD/HDD , etc.

Here, MiniTool Partition Wizard introduces how to assign a drive letter step by step. You can have a try.

Step 1 : Download and install this program on your PC. Then launch it to get into the main interface.

MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Click to Download 100% Clean & Safe

Step 2 : Right-click the partition on the target disk and then select Change Letter . Alternatively, you can highlight the target partition and select Change Drive Letter from the left action panel.

Step 3 : Select a preferred drive letter and then click OK .

Step 4 : Finally, click Apply to execute this operation.

Click to Tweet: What to do when the “Windows not assigning drive letter” issue comes out? If you have no clue, I’d like to share this post with you. A couple of feasible solutions are listed in this post. Click to Tweet

Bottom Line

All the methods mentioned above are available. When you run into the “Windows not assigning drive letter” issue, you can try to fix it with the above methods. If you have any problems with this issue, you can leave a message in the comment area.

If you encounter any problems while using MiniTool Partition Wizard, you can contact us via [email protected] . We’ll reply to you as soon as possible.

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