How to mount a drive as a folder on Windows 7

Mount drive to folder

Mounting a drive to a folder path can have its benefits and inconveniences. For example, if you’re already sharing content in your network, you probably have one or several network map drives. The problem is that as you add more drives to the network, you start adding more map points to the computer. This can quickly add-up and they can start getting you confuse (Music in drive M, Movie on X, Pictures on P, Documents on D, and so on), and it’s hard to keep-up.

Having a single drive with mount points to other drives can make it easier to host your content. The steps below will show you the process to mount a drive to an empty folder in Windows 7 using the Command Prompt and Computer Management.

How to mount a drive as a folder using Command Prompt

  1. Open File Explorer.

  2. Create an empty folder in the location that you want the mount point to be. For example, C:\mountpoint.

  3. Open Start.

  4. Search for Command Prompt, right-click the result, and select Run as Administrator.

  5. Type the following command to run DiskPart and press Enter:

    diskpart
  6. Type the following command to list all the volume in your computer and press Enter:

    list volume
  7. Type the following command making sure selecting the drive you want to assign to a folder path and press Enter:

    select volume 4

    In the command, remember to replace 4 with the number for the drive you want to mount.

  8. Type the following command to mount a drive as a folder and press Enter:

    assign mount=C:\mountpoint

    Mount assign DiskPart

You should now be able to see all the content of the new drive inside of the mounted folder.

How to mount a drive as a folder using Computer Management

Alternatively, you can use the Computer Management, which is a more user-friendly graphical interface that you can use to accomplish this task.

  1. Open Start.

  2. Search for Computer Management and click the result.

  3. Select Disk Management from the left pane.

  4. Right-click the drive you want to mount to a folder path and select Change Drive Letter and Paths.

    Computer Management - Change drive letter

  5. Click the Add button.

    Change drive letter

  6. Select the Mount in the following empty NTFS folder option.

  7. Click the Browse button.

  8. Locate the empty folder you have created to work as mount point, and click OK.

    Mount empty NTFS folder

Assigning a mount point folder path to a drive you can virtually add more space to your network users without having the need of creating additional network maps, all users will only have to remember one drive letter.

These benefits are also true for storage locally attached to your computer and you don’t have a network. You can mount a drive to an empty folder inside your documents and you will only have to remember to go to one place, plus everything will be shown in a single path, a difference from shortcuts that will simply make a jump to the original drive path.

About the author

Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 14 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 20 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me.