USB Drive Letters all whacky...

[ME]

Not really sure what happened. Just kind of tore down, moved, and
reconnected my computer and it's peripherals. Funny word peripherals, no?
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but a, say, external hard drive when plugged in
and fired up will take the letter drive that's next available right? For me,
that'd be 'I,' then 'J,' etc. My problem is that somehow after reconnecting
my computery bits, the external hard drive that used to be 'I' is now somehow
stamped as 'J' every time it's plugged in even when it's the only thing
connected??? The kicker is that a program I use points to this external hard
drive when in 'I' and now can't access its files because it's suddenly 'J'!
If I plug in another hard drive, this one has no problem being stuck to the
'I' drive? So what the hell?! How does this happen and how do I get the
computer to re-recognize the 'J' drive as 'I' again? Wow, I hope you
understood that. Thanky!

 

[Mark Adams]

Not really sure what happened. Just kind of tore down, moved, and
reconnected my computer and it's peripherals. Funny word peripherals, no?
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but a, say, external hard drive when plugged in
and fired up will take the letter drive that's next available right? For me,
that'd be 'I,' then 'J,' etc. My problem is that somehow after reconnecting
my computery bits, the external hard drive that used to be 'I' is now somehow
stamped as 'J' every time it's plugged in even when it's the only thing
connected??? The kicker is that a program I use points to this external hard
drive when in 'I' and now can't access its files because it's suddenly 'J'!
If I plug in another hard drive, this one has no problem being stuck to the
'I' drive? So what the hell?! How does this happen and how do I get the
computer to re-recognize the 'J' drive as 'I' again? Wow, I hope you
understood that. Thanky!

Plug in the drive that gives the wrong drive letter. Go into Disk Management
and assign it the proper letter.

 

[Tim Meddick]

Go to 'Administrative Tools' on your 'Start Menu' and start the 'Disk
Management' item.

This is also found in the 'Computer Management' item.

Also, started by typing :

mmc.exe c:\windows\system32\diskmgmt.msc

....into the "Run box on your "Start Menu''

Then right-click on a drive you want to change the letter of and choose
the item :

"Change drive letters and paths"

....you may need to 'juggle' them a little, if you have a drive occupying
the letter you want to change it to, you will need to change that first,
to another unoccupied letter.

Hope this helps.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[ME]

Thanks! Yes this works. I still don't understand why a drive gets
permanently slapped with a certain letter. Every time I restart my computer,
said drive gets labled with 'J' when the first available letter is 'I'. So I
have to consistently change the drive from 'J' back to 'I'. So what
happened?

 

[Tim Meddick]

For all drives, including removable drives, Windows assigns a GUID
(Globally Unique Identifier) to it and assigns a drive-letter to that
GUID.

When re-inserted into the system, Windows recognises the drive and the
GUID linked to it, and then re-assigns the same drive-letter.

If you use the same free USB port every time for a removable drive, it
will appear as the same letter every time it is inserted.

You have to make sure you don't allow any other drive to take up that
same drive-letter in the meantime, however.

Thusly, I can remove my pen drive (drive G from the system and, as
long as I don't let a new memory-stick I may add take up that letter,
when I re-insert the pen drive - it will always come up as drive [G:]

Windows will attempt to keep letters that have recently been allocated
to removable drives vacant - in case they are used again.

But apart from recently used letters, yes, Windows will assign the very
next free letter to a totally new drive.

You can make Windows "forget" all these recently used letters by typing
the following command into a 'Command Prompt' (dos-box) window :

reg DELETE
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MountPoints2 /s
/f

(The above command should be all on one line but may not appear so due
to line-wrap. Please ensure that the command begins with 'reg' and ends
with '/f')

....this will result in Windows being forced to re-assign GUIDs to all
drives.

*Note - Please exercise care when editing the registry, always create a
backup and / or create a 'System Restore' point first.


You can also "see" a list of GUIDs for all available drives on your
system by typing the following command :

mountvol

...at the end of the help text that is displayed.

Hope this helps...

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[smlunatick]

For all drives, including removable drives, Windows assigns a GUID
(Globally Unique Identifier) to it and assigns a drive-letter to that
GUID.

When re-inserted into the system, Windows recognises the drive and the
GUID linked to it, and then re-assigns the same drive-letter.

If you use the same free USB port every time for a removable drive, it
will appear as the same letter every time it is inserted.

You have to make sure you don't allow any other drive to take up that
same drive-letter in the meantime, however.

Thusly, I can remove my pen drive (drive G from the system and, as
long as I don't let a new memory-stick I may add take up that letter,
when I re-insert the pen drive - it will always come up as drive [G:]

Windows will attempt to keep letters that have recently been allocated
to removable drives vacant - in case they are used again.

But apart from recently used letters, yes, Windows will assign the very
next free letter to a totally new drive.

You can make Windows "forget" all these recently used letters by typing
the following command into a 'Command Prompt' (dos-box) window :

reg DELETE
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MountPoints2 /s
/f

(The above command should be all on one line but may not appear so due
to line-wrap.  Please ensure that the command begins with 'reg' and ends
with '/f')

...this will result in Windows being forced to re-assign GUIDs to all
drives.

*Note - Please exercise care when editing the registry, always create a
backup and / or create a 'System Restore' point first.

You can also "see" a list of GUIDs for all available drives on your
system by typing the following command :

mountvol

..at the end of the help text that is displayed.

Hope this helps...

==

Cheers,    Tim Meddick,    Peckham, London.    

Thanks!  Yes this works.  I still don't understand why a drive gets
permanently slapped with a certain letter.  Every time I restart my
computer,
said drive gets labled with 'J' when the first available letter is
'I'.  So I
have to consistently change the drive from 'J' back to 'I'.  So what
happened?

"Tim Meddick" wrote:

This seems to be a constant problem. Check the following:

http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html

Thank you Uwe!!!!!!