The label command is used to view or change the label of a computer’s drives.
Availability
Label is an external command that is available for the following Microsoft operating systems. MS-DOS 4.0x and earlier used label.com as the external file. MS-DOS 5.0 and versions of Windows that support this command use label.exe as the external file.
Availability
Label syntax
Label examples
Possible issues
Questions and answers
All Versions of MS-DOS
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows ME
Windows NT
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Windows 7
Windows 8
Windows 10
Windows 11
Label syntax
Windows Vista and later syntax
LABEL [drive:][label] LABEL [/MP] [volume] [label]
Windows XP and earlier syntax
LABEL [drive:][label]
Label examples
label a: hope
The example above would label the floppy diskette in drive A: to “hope,” but will not label if your disk is write-protected.
- Windows Vista and later syntax.
- Windows XP and earlier syntax.
Possible issues
If your hard drive label contains ASCII or other extended characters and you are running MS-DOS 6.0 or lower, running ScanDisk may corrupt the hard drive.
Because ScanDisk is looking for corrupt or incorrect data, if the hard drive label has ASCII or any unrecognized characters it attempts to fix those characters. If ScanDisk attempts to fix your label, it may remove all information and place it into a CHK file.
If the hard drive has unrecognizable characters, unable to delete the partition using fdisk.
Use label to recreate the label and then use fdisk to delete the partition after label created.
Questions and answers
- How to rename or label a disk drive.
- How to view the name or label of a drive.
Related information
- See our label definition for further information and related links on this term.