Change drive letter for optical drive?

[Jon Danniken]

Hello, I am working within DiscManagement to organize the partitions on my
new hard drive. I would like to name my second partition as "D:\", but my
optical drive is already called "D:\", and I can find no way to change it.

Is there any way to relabel the optical drive as something other than "D:\"?

Thanks,

Jon

 

[Nil]

Hello, I am working within DiscManagement to organize the
partitions on my new hard drive. I would like to name my second
partition as "D:\", but my optical drive is already called "D:\",
and I can find no way to change it.

Is there any way to relabel the optical drive as something other
than "D:\"?

Yes. You do it in Disk Management, just like you change a hard disk
drive letter.

 

[Paul]

Yes. You do it in Disk Management, just like you change a hard disk
drive letter.

This is generally a good thing to do (lift the optical drive letter).
I used to do this in the past, just after finishing an OS install.
Say, move the optical drive to "q:", some middle of the road letter.
That leaves room, to fill in from either end.

The only time I've noticed this causing a problem, is if you've
waited much later to make the letter change. I noticed I had a problem
if I installed the OS with optical drive "d:", then installed
Microsoft Office, then lifted optical drive to "q:", and needed
to "repair" Microsoft Office. Then it would whine about something
it needed from "d:". So some program installations, "remember" the
drive letter which functioned as the installation source. Not
all programs do that, just the really big and expensive ones.

I think if you run System File Checker, and it needs the CD, it
may also need help finding it. There's some hack involving
two registry entries, that help SFC get back on the right track.
I don't know if I've ever had SFC stay on the right track
all by itself :-( It was always a bit grumpy, the few times I've
tried it.

Paul

 

[Nil]

This is generally a good thing to do (lift the optical drive
letter). I used to do this in the past, just after finishing an OS
install. Say, move the optical drive to "q:", some middle of the
road letter. That leaves room, to fill in from either end.

I like to make 'em drive "O:" - y'know, like them round things you put
in 'em.

The only time I've noticed this causing a problem, is if you've
waited much later to make the letter change. I noticed I had a
problem if I installed the OS with optical drive "d:", then
installed Microsoft Office, then lifted optical drive to "q:", and
needed to "repair" Microsoft Office. Then it would whine about
something it needed from "d:". So some program installations,
"remember" the drive letter which functioned as the installation
source. Not all programs do that, just the really big and
expensive ones.

I've run across that a couple of times. I usually change the optical
drive letter right after installing the OS, before I start installing
things. Office can get bitchy when its installation drive has been
changed, but as I recall, it was a simple change in the registry to
make it right.

 

[Jon Danniken]

I like to make 'em drive "O:" - y'know, like them round things you put
in 'em.

Heh, that's what I ended up naming mine, with the "O" as in the "O" for
Optical.

And you were right, of course, I "found" it in the DiskManagement app (just
not in the place I was looking).

Thank you,

Jon

 

[Char Jackson]

Like the others have said, it's not a bad idea to set it to a high letter
like "O" or "Q", for example. That way if you plug-in some flash drives,
or decide later to add some partitions to your HD, the CD drive letter will
never change.

Neither of those things will cause a CD drive's letter to change.

 

[BillW50]

I must be misrembering something here, because I thought had some issues
when I just let the CD drive letter run at its default setting after windows
booted up.

I thought the CD drive letter got assigned after windows booted up, and just
above the current hard drive partition letters. So then if you later added
some partitions to your HD, for example, the CD drive letter would move up
above it, thus changing its drive letter.

I guess plugging in a flash drive wouldn't do it, as you pointed out,
however, unless perhaps it were left plugged in before bootup.

Are you thinking of Windows 9x/ME? As Windows 2000 and up the optical
drive letter shouldn't change unless you change it.

 

[BillW50]

Even if you add partitions to your hard drive? You mean those partition
letters would go above the removable CD drive letter? If so, I'm
surprised! I had thought the order always was removable devices (incl CD
drives) come last (unless perhaps you deliberately overrode that by forcing
it to be something in Disk Management - but only then (and not just letting
windows assign it).

With older Windows (W9x/ME) this was true. But with Windows
2000/XP/Vista/7/8 whatever drive letter it first gets assigned to,
sticks. Unless you unplug the optical drive later, something might grab
that free drive letter. Then when you plug that optical drive back, if
something is using it, then the optical drive will get assigned a new
drive letter.

I have 6 laptops with a modular bay (which the optical drive among other
things slide into). And my optical drives use drive D. So when they are
removed, something (like an external drive) could grab that drive letter.

To reserve this drive D letter for the optical drive (D = DVD), I use
USB Safety Remove or Zentimo. As they will both reserve a drive letter
for one device whether it is there or not. Thus an external device can't
use that drive letter even if it isn't there.

Although you don't need a fancy program to do this either. Just remove
the device grabbing that drive letter and plug your optical drive back
in and all is fine again.