Constantly Changing Drive Letters

[Guest]

I have a problem with Windows XP, I have changed the drive letters for my CD
and DVD devices to V and W to avoid the constant re-lettering of these drives
due to the addition of USB memory devices or flash memory cards.

For some reason Windows XP seems to continually forget the letters that I
have reassigned these drives, and it reassigns new letters to them again, to
whatever configuration it thinks appropriate at that moment. The end result
is that my CD-ROM and DVD-ROM always seemed to be labeled with a different
drive letter. This moving target of changing drive letters is causing other
programs to have problems since they never seem to know where to find the
constantly moving optical drives.

How do I make Windows keep the drive letters that I have assigned to these
devices?

 

[Richard Urban]

After you change the drive letter, immediately reboot - without adding any
new drives in the interim.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Guest]

Thank you, but I tried that. The drive letters may, or may not stay fixed
e.g. I get the desired drive letters working with just the CD/DVD and hard
drives - boots ok, then I add a USB device and the CD & DVD change letters
again. Another anomoly is that if I start the computer with a CD in the
drive (Music CD), the drive letters change again.

Very frustrating!

 

[Richard Urban]

Move all of the CD and DVD drives to the end of the alphabet. I use Y and Z
for my two drives. If you use a multicard reader, either stand alone or part
of a printer, do the same for these "drives". Yes, each port on the card
reader or the printer is considered a drive. Get them out of the way also.
Toward the end please!

Then when you plug in a USB device it will not trip over what is already
there.

Also, when using removable drives - make certain that you always connect it
to the same port.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Steve N.]

Thank you, but I tried that. The drive letters may, or may not stay fixed
e.g. I get the desired drive letters working with just the CD/DVD and hard
drives - boots ok, then I add a USB device and the CD & DVD change letters
again. Another anomoly is that if I start the computer with a CD in the
drive (Music CD), the drive letters change again.

Very frustrating!

I've seen similar problems, even with mapped network drive letters being
incorrectly and inoperatively assigned to USB devices when they're
connected. I consider this to be a bug in XP and know of no sure
work-around. Re-assigning the drive letters seems to work for a while
then at random it seems to revert to the same trouble but not always.
There may be a logical cause for this behaviour but I haven't discovered
it yet.

Steve N.