I have a pair of different brand external hard drives; one's a Seagate,
one's a Maxtor. They both connect to the PC via a USB 2.0 cable, and they
both work fine.

I have a backup software package called HandyBackup that you can schedule
backups on. Currently I have several directories from the network backed up
to K: (which is the external drive) during the wee hours of the morning when
no one's at work. What I want to do is come in to work, unplug the one
external drive and plug in the 2nd one (into the same USB 2.0 port on the
PC), and take the first one home. I trade off this way so that I have a
current backup at home (in case work blows up).

Now, each drive by itself seems to remember its drive letter when I plug it
in, as long as I only use one drive. However, if the first drive is K, and
I unplug it and plug in the other drive, that second drive gets the G drive
letter as default. So I have to manually change the drive letter (or change
the backup scripts) to get the backup to work right. if I change the G to
K, then when I plug in the OTHER drive (the first one), now THAT one gets G.
So it seems that Windows realizes it's a different drive, even though it's
the same USB port, and assigns a litter different than the K it somehow
knows was removed.

I'd like to make it so both drives automatically get K when plugged in and
recognized, so I don't need to either reassign drive letters or change the
backup scripts every time I trade external drives.

I saw a lot of posts saying that Windows does not remember drive letter
assignments, and only assigns the next available letter, but the K IS
remembered as long as I don't assign K to the second external drive. In
other words, if I assign K to one external drive, I can unplug and
re-connect that same drive, and it will always remember the K. It's only if
I assign K to the OTHER drive that it forgets it on the first drive.

Again, these are two EXTERNAL hard drives being traded back forth on ONE USB
2.0 port on the PC.

Any help would be appreciated, and thanks for reading.

Yes, but each hard drive has a unique hardware ID number specific to that drive itself. Even though
they are on the same port they have different physical ID numbers, thats why when you reassign the
letter and then connect new drive it goes back to first alphabetically available letter. I don't
beleive theres a way around that unless you want to manually change one drive to K and the the other
to L and have two scripts. Run one when the K drive is hooked in say on M,W,F and L on T,Th using
the scheduler.
--
Dave Vair
CNE, CNA, MCP, A+, N+

"Complete Newb" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:w-(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have a pair of different brand external hard drives; one's a Seagate, one's a Maxtor. They both
>connect to the PC via a USB 2.0 cable, and they both work fine.
>
> I have a backup software package called HandyBackup that you can schedule backups on. Currently I
> have several directories from the network backed up to K: (which is the external drive) during the
> wee hours of the morning when no one's at work. What I want to do is come in to work, unplug the
> one external drive and plug in the 2nd one (into the same USB 2.0 port on the PC), and take the
> first one home. I trade off this way so that I have a current backup at home (in case work blows
> up).
>
> Now, each drive by itself seems to remember its drive letter when I plug it in, as long as I only
> use one drive. However, if the first drive is K, and I unplug it and plug in the other drive,
> that second drive gets the G drive letter as default. So I have to manually change the drive
> letter (or change the backup scripts) to get the backup to work right. if I change the G to K,
> then when I plug in the OTHER drive (the first one), now THAT one gets G. So it seems that Windows
> realizes it's a different drive, even though it's the same USB port, and assigns a litter
> different than the K it somehow knows was removed.
>
> I'd like to make it so both drives automatically get K when plugged in and recognized, so I don't
> need to either reassign drive letters or change the backup scripts every time I trade external
> drives.
>
> I saw a lot of posts saying that Windows does not remember drive letter assignments, and only
> assigns the next available letter, but the K IS remembered as long as I don't assign K to the
> second external drive. In other words, if I assign K to one external drive, I can unplug and
> re-connect that same drive, and it will always remember the K. It's only if I assign K to the
> OTHER drive that it forgets it on the first drive.
>
> Again, these are two EXTERNAL hard drives being traded back forth on ONE USB 2.0 port on the PC.
>
> Any help would be appreciated, and thanks for reading.
>

DAve:

Thanks for the response, it is appreciated. I was afraid there wasn't a way
to do this, and that alternating script thing was an idea I had, I was just
hoping to make the whole process a little more idiot proof (the idiot being
myself).

Thanks again!


"David Vair" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:45a3d238$0$7659$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Yes, but each hard drive has a unique hardware ID number specific to that
> drive itself. Even though they are on the same port they have different
> physical ID numbers, thats why when you reassign the letter and then
> connect new drive it goes back to first alphabetically available letter.
> I don't beleive theres a way around that unless you want to manually
> change one drive to K and the the other to L and have two scripts. Run one
> when the K drive is hooked in say on M,W,F and L on T,Th using the
> scheduler.
> --
> Dave Vair
> CNE, CNA, MCP, A+, N+
>
> "Complete Newb" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:w-(E-Mail Removed)...
>>I have a pair of different brand external hard drives; one's a Seagate,
>>one's a Maxtor. They both connect to the PC via a USB 2.0 cable, and they
>>both work fine.
>>
>> I have a backup software package called HandyBackup that you can schedule
>> backups on. Currently I have several directories from the network backed
>> up to K: (which is the external drive) during the wee hours of the
>> morning when no one's at work. What I want to do is come in to work,
>> unplug the one external drive and plug in the 2nd one (into the same USB
>> 2.0 port on the PC), and take the first one home. I trade off this way
>> so that I have a current backup at home (in case work blows up).
>>
>> Now, each drive by itself seems to remember its drive letter when I plug
>> it in, as long as I only use one drive. However, if the first drive is
>> K, and I unplug it and plug in the other drive, that second drive gets
>> the G drive letter as default. So I have to manually change the drive
>> letter (or change the backup scripts) to get the backup to work right.
>> if I change the G to K, then when I plug in the OTHER drive (the first
>> one), now THAT one gets G. So it seems that Windows realizes it's a
>> different drive, even though it's the same USB port, and assigns a litter
>> different than the K it somehow knows was removed.
>>
>> I'd like to make it so both drives automatically get K when plugged in
>> and recognized, so I don't need to either reassign drive letters or
>> change the backup scripts every time I trade external drives.
>>
>> I saw a lot of posts saying that Windows does not remember drive letter
>> assignments, and only assigns the next available letter, but the K IS
>> remembered as long as I don't assign K to the second external drive. In
>> other words, if I assign K to one external drive, I can unplug and
>> re-connect that same drive, and it will always remember the K. It's only
>> if I assign K to the OTHER drive that it forgets it on the first drive.
>>
>> Again, these are two EXTERNAL hard drives being traded back forth on ONE
>> USB 2.0 port on the PC.
>>
>> Any help would be appreciated, and thanks for reading.
>>
>
>

"Complete Newb" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote

> I'd like to make it so both drives automatically get K when plugged in and
> recognized, so I don't need to either reassign drive letters or change the
> backup scripts every time I trade external drives.

So far I've found that giving USB drives a unique name tends to lock the
letter assignment.

--
Bob
http://www.kanyak.com

Try this utility from Uwe Sieber
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html

Complete Newb wrote:
> I have a pair of different brand external hard drives; one's a Seagate,
> one's a Maxtor. They both connect to the PC via a USB 2.0 cable, and they
> both work fine.
>
> I have a backup software package called HandyBackup that you can schedule
> backups on. Currently I have several directories from the network backed up
> to K: (which is the external drive) during the wee hours of the morning when
> no one's at work. What I want to do is come in to work, unplug the one
> external drive and plug in the 2nd one (into the same USB 2.0 port on the
> PC), and take the first one home. I trade off this way so that I have a
> current backup at home (in case work blows up).
>
> Now, each drive by itself seems to remember its drive letter when I plug it
> in, as long as I only use one drive. However, if the first drive is K, and
> I unplug it and plug in the other drive, that second drive gets the G drive
> letter as default. So I have to manually change the drive letter (or change
> the backup scripts) to get the backup to work right. if I change the G to
> K, then when I plug in the OTHER drive (the first one), now THAT one gets G.
> So it seems that Windows realizes it's a different drive, even though it's
> the same USB port, and assigns a litter different than the K it somehow
> knows was removed.
>
> I'd like to make it so both drives automatically get K when plugged in and
> recognized, so I don't need to either reassign drive letters or change the
> backup scripts every time I trade external drives.
>
> I saw a lot of posts saying that Windows does not remember drive letter
> assignments, and only assigns the next available letter, but the K IS
> remembered as long as I don't assign K to the second external drive. In
> other words, if I assign K to one external drive, I can unplug and
> re-connect that same drive, and it will always remember the K. It's only if
> I assign K to the OTHER drive that it forgets it on the first drive.
>
> Again, these are two EXTERNAL hard drives being traded back forth on ONE USB
> 2.0 port on the PC.
>
> Any help would be appreciated, and thanks for reading.
>
>