Dual Boot Partition Not Showing In Windows 7

Martin | Jan 15, 2009 | Comments

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If you install Windows 7 on another hard drive or partition on your computer system you might notice that the partition of the other operating system is not showing up in Windows 7. This happened to a dual boot system on a test laptop with Windows Vista being the initial system and Windows 7 being installed on another partition.

The reason for this is that the drive letter of the Windows Vista partition is not assigned in Windows 7 meaning the Vista partition does not have a drive letter and can therefor not be displayed in Windows 7. Here is how to fix that.

Click the Windows key, enter diskmgmt.msc and press the enter key. This will open the Disk Management interface that is displaying all connected hard drives and partitions. It should look similar to the image below, notice the missing drive letter in the first line.

vista partition

All you need to do is to select the partition with the missing drive letter in the lower half of the screen (where it say Disk 0, Disk 1 and so on) and right-click it.

windows7 hidden partition

Select Change Drive Letter And Path from the context menu. Click on the Add button in the next menu and pick a drive letter from the pulldown menu.

change drive letter

A click on OK finishes the processes and the Windows Vista partition (or any other that was missing) should now be visible in Windows Explorer.

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About the Author: Martin Brinkmann is an Online Journalist from Germany who discovered his love for technology in high school. He is currently working as a freelancer for several publications and runs his own Internet website Ghacks

  • TalkCafe del Mar
    You think this is a bug?
    I was very happy about it.
    I don't want one operating system"s partitions to show up in the other systems.
    I thought this is a feature, not a bug :D
  • sdgsgb
    i tought sow eethuer much better so
  • jj
    before installing 7 I had a dual boot wiht xp and vista on two separate disks, now I have a triple boot with xp 7 and vista , and everything works
  • Oh well thank you for this nice article..
  • Thank you so much!
    Finally I'm able to quickly access some files that are on my Vista installation!
  • panki_86
    The same problem as on Build 6936 x64! I have 2 Hard drives on first i have two partitions on second i have one. when i installed Win7 on first partition it didn't recognized second partition. So i dedicted a drive letter on my second partition. I Think this is the bug!
  • ThirDoc[76]
    "Here is how to fix that." ??? --> "Here is how to change that."
    In my opinion it's not something that's broken.
    I have a triple boot now (Vista + Windows 7 32 & 64 bit) and I like it that the other OS's don't have their own drive letter. Keeps it nice and clean.
  • Trixxx
    this is a bug?... i think this is one bug i wouldn't want fixed... when i installed xp on a pc running vista, i even used a third party bootloader just to hide the inactive OS's partition...
  • MaDDogLV
    I had the same problem with x64 and x32 win7 that if ur hdd is separate in 2 partitions then if u don`t install win 7 in first then when u log in and check ur hdd u will se only one off 2 drives :) so its cind of bad thing I hope that it will be corected
  • Jack
    hey MaDDog, learn how to type and spell. your spelling hurts our eyes!
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