Assigning permanent letters to external devices.

[Guest]

How does one assign specific drive letters to the external storage and
optical devices? Basically the letters change as different devices are hooked
up. Card readers and External DVB burners and USB flash drive letters get all
randomly assigned. Need to get Drive letters assigned per device type. Backup
scripts depend on certain drive letters. if anyone has done something similar
to what I require please reply.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

How does one assign specific drive letters to the external storage and
optical devices? Basically the letters change as different devices are hooked
up. Card readers and External DVB burners and USB flash drive letters get all
randomly assigned. Need to get Drive letters assigned per device type. Backup
scripts depend on certain drive letters. if anyone has done something similar
to what I require please reply.

You can do this:
1. Connect the device.
2. Launch diskmgmt.msc (via Start / Run).
3. Assign the desired drive letter. Stay clear of the low letters of the
alphabet.
4. Repeat the above process with the next device.

You will now find that your drive letters are remembered, unless
you assign the same letter to a different device. Each device must
have a ***unique*** drive letter!

 

[Guest]

You will now find that your drive letters are remembered, unless
you assign the same letter to a different device. Each device must
have a ***unique*** drive letter!

This will do as workaround, when users have limited number of removable disks.
However this trick is not reliable for unattended software.

Backup scripts should not be naive these days... Try robust ways to handle
removable drives, such as volume GUIDs etc.

--PA

 

[Guest]

The backup scripts are home grown for personal use with Batch files and
simple schedular. Even software with external devices like from CMS does not
use Volume GUID. The software still tries to backup using Drvie letters.

I tried using higher drive letters. Still if connected to my work network I
run into confilct with login scripts using higher drive letters as well.

Thanks for all the input. Is there a XP startup login script which can
perform the assign command? I actually add the drives on the fly as well
after starting up. But anything to get the drive letters properly would not
mind a reboot.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I don't quite see what your problem is. I would have thought
that an arrangement like this one would be adquate for most
installations:

Drives A: .. F: - local drives
Drives G: .. P: - USB drives (that's 10 drives!)
Drives Q: .. Z: - LAN drives (that's 10 more drives)

You can place subst.exe into any batch file in your startup
folder if you want it to run at logon time. However, it's not
going to give you extra drive letters!

 

[Uwe Sieber]

How does one assign specific drive letters to the external storage and
optical devices? Basically the letters change as different devices are hooked
up. Card readers and External DVB burners and USB flash drive letters get all
randomly assigned. Need to get Drive letters assigned per device type. Backup
scripts depend on certain drive letters. if anyone has done something similar
to what I require please reply.

I wrote a small Win32 service. Using it you can define default
letters for USB drives.
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html

It's tested with USB flash drives and USB harddisks only.
I expect that USB burners appear with a DriveType 'DRIVE_CDROM'.
If this is true, the current version of USBDLM would ignore it.

If you have time for testing I could send you a debug version
whose logs would be interesting for me...


Greetings from Germany

Uwe

 

[Guest]

The problem arises when you attach a 12 in 1 USB card reader. This is the
card reader for your camera media like the Sony MS, the Compact flash card
reader and all the other types of media for digital cameras. When attached it
literally takes up and assigns letters to all the possible slots. Add to that
other USB devices I add and then my mapped drives. I would definitely fit
between G: - Z: but depending on which order you connect these devices the
drive letters are assigned by windows randomly.

Thanks for the input its really valuable.

 

[Uwe Sieber]

Yes, these '100 in 1' card readers are very hungry for
drive letters...

If you have any NTFS formatted drive you can mount the
card reader's slots to empty NTFS folders thru the
disk management. Create a folder like
\CardReader
and folders like Slot1, Slot2, Slot3 in it.
Then you can open the Disk Management, remove the
card readers drive letters and assign them to the
previous created folders.
Here is an how to:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307844&sd=tech


Greetings from Germany

Uwe