Updated: 06/22/2018 by Computer Hope. Alternatively referred to as a device letter, a drive letter is
a single alphabetic character A through Z that is assigned to a physical computer drive or drive partition
. For example, a computer with a 3 1/2′′ floppy diskette
What do the different drive letters mean?
The drive letter standard, with the colon (:), dates back to before DOS. By default, in Windows (and in DOS before it), the boot
drive
is C:. Other drives, whether they’re internal, external, optical, or additional partitions, get other letters, usually in the order they were assigned: D:, E:, and so on.
What are the A and B drives?
A: —
Floppy disk drives
, 31⁄2′′ or 51⁄4′′, and possibly other types of disk drives, if present. B: — Reserved for a second floppy drive (that was present on many PCs). C: — First hard disk partition. D: to Z: — Other disk partitions get labeled here.
What do the DOS Windows drive letters a B?
Where Do Drive Letters Come From? Like many things in Windows—such as, how it uses backward instead of forward slashes—drive letters date back to the days of MS-DOS (in fact, even a bit earlier). This is the reason the Windows system drive uses the letter C:—A: and B:
were reserved for floppy disk drives
.
Why do drive letters start with C?
It’s a left over from the original PC designs. Originally PCs only had up to 2 floppy disk drives labelled A and B. Some time later hard disks got added and became drive C. The
hard disk letter is C because historically, drives A and B were for floppy disks.
What are C and D drives?
for use as data storage or backup drives. Most people use the
C: drive for the Windows operating system and installing programs
. Since you probably have not altered the hard disk drive yourself due to the nature of your question, the D: drive is used by many manufacturers to serve as the recovery disks.
Why is there no drive A or B?
The reason you might not have heard of these drives is because all big computer fabricators generally stopped including them on personal computers in 2003, with the earlier being Apple who began disregarding the drives in 1998 on their iMac computers. It was common to have two drives, hence why
A & B are reserved
.
What is another name for the C: drive?
In later Windows version, the C: drive is labeled as
Primary Drive or Local Disk
, and can be accessed by default by opening the “My Computer” folder.
Does Windows have to be installed on C: drive?
Yes, it’s true!
Windows’ location could be on any drive letter
. Even because you can have more than one OS installed on the same computer. You also could have a computer without a C: drive letter.
Does it matter what letter My drive is?
Drive letters A, B, & C
are reserved
. A & B are reserved for Floppy Disk drives, which are no longer used in systems made after the year 2000 or so. C can only be used for the O/S (boot) drive. Use any letter you want from D through Z.
What if Windows runs out of drive letters?
Once you run out of drive letters Windows will force you to mount drives to
a NTFS folder or mount points
rather than a drive letter.
How many drive letters can Windows 10 have?
26 drives
appears to be the limit within Windows, with drive letters assigned A: to Z:. There are alternatives to 26 drives that are, effectively, limitless.
Does Linux use drive letters?
Linux doesn’t have drive letters
. Instead, it makes other file systems accessible at arbitrary directories. (Windows can do this too, but this isn’t how it works out of the box.) On Linux, everything is under / – the root directory.
Is C: drive part of hard disk?
The C: drive, also known as
your computer’s hard drive
, has the important job of storing your computer’s operating system (Windows, Mac OS, Linux, etc.), as well as applications you use (e.g. Microsoft Office, Adobe, Mozilla Firefox) and files you download from the internet.
What is an F drive?
The F drive is
personal space on a networked drive
, meaning it is only accessible to the specific user who is logged into the computer. When you log into any computer at work or the remote desktop tool when at home, you will be connected to your F drive, and have access to all of the files you have saved there.
What is the D drive?
The D: drive is usually
a secondary hard drive installed on a computer
, often used to hold the restore partition or to provide additional disk storage space. … drive to free up some space or perhaps because the computer is being assigned to another worker in your office.
