External USB drives grab extra drive letters when installed

[Bob Danielson]

System: Windows 98SE with the Microsoft USB driver patch, internal
drive partitioned to C, D, E

Drives: Maxtor 120 mb USB 2.0
ADS 3.5 shell with two different 3.5" drives


When either of these external units are connected during bootup, they
grab both drive letter D (pushing my internal drive partitions down)
and the "later" letter as specified in control panel. This naturally
screws up all my software paths. So for example the Maxtor drive
appears as both drive D and drive G.

When disconnected, the intended drive letter disappears as expected
but the D: drive remains as a "ghost" and remains until shutdown.

Of course I can fix this by never attaching the externals until after
bootup but I was hoping there would be a more complete solution......

 

[Psi-Tau Paladin]

System: Windows 98SE with the Microsoft USB driver patch, internal
drive partitioned to C, D, E

AFAIK that is a windows 98 problem as it assigns the drive letters based on
the primary-extended relationship. i.e. HDD 1 Prim gets first letter, HDD2
prim gets second letter, then HDD 1 ext gets next until all partitions are
used up, then HDD 2 ext will start to be assigned.

One way I got around it was if the external drive is used only for storage,
partition it with only a Extended partition, no primary. It will then go
after E.

 

[Eric Gisin]

You likely have USB drive support enabled in the BIOS, giving you a drive in
DOS.

 

[Jim Walker]

Can you reassign drive letters for the external drive like H for example.
If that doesn't work you can make the external a non primary drive or a
logical drive. I have no problem in Win 2000 with the drive letters
changing.

 

[CWatters]

When I built my PC I configured my removable drives to be higher up. eg my
HD partions are C: D: & E: and my removables are L: M: N and my mapped
network drives Z: Y: X:

This seems to work OK. I've never had problems installing S/W from a CD in
drive L:

Colin

 

[Psi-Tau Paladin]

When I built my PC I configured my removable drives to be higher up. eg my
HD partions are C: D: & E: and my removables are L: M: N and my mapped
network drives Z: Y: X:

This seems to work OK. I've never had problems installing S/W from a CD in
drive L:

Colin

Yeah, this technique will work fine when you have windows 2000 and xp, it
won't work in 95/98/SE because of the way they were designed to assign drive
letters to partitions.

 

[Eric Gisin]

Yeah, this technique will work fine when you have windows 2000 and xp, it
won't work in 95/98/SE because of the way they were designed to assign drive
letters to partitions.

Nope, Win 98/ME can reassign any removable drive that was not assigned in DOS.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Which is DOS's fault, not Win9x.

Nope, Win 98/ME can reassign any removable drive that was not assigned in DOS.

Actually that is not re-assigning, just assigning the next free (i.e. not reserved) letter.

I don't think Win9x/me can re-assign already assigned 'fixed media' drive letters.
It can for already assigned *removable media* drive letters by reserving
drive letters, though that gave me several hangs when with media in the drive.
And you can reserve drive letters for fixed media drives that have been declared
"removable" in the driver tab and that weren't already assigned a drive letter.
To partition them you have to start as fixed and then change to removable after
being partitioned

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

You likely have USB drive support enabled in the BIOS, giving you a drive in
DOS.

Yes, but shouldn't W98 just take over that DOS drive letter and not add an-
other one? It is the other letter that is strange. Sounds like a driver problem.

 

[Bob Danielson]

Thanks all for your help, looks like there is no fix in 98, looks
like I will be moving on to 2000.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Thanks all for your help, looks like there is no fix in 98,

Sounds like you didn't understand a word of what we said.

 

[Psi-Tau Paladin]

Sounds like you didn't understand a word of what we said.

He probably thought..."fsk!, I have to do what? and to where?...screw
this..I'm going to windows 2000..."