Need a utility to make a subdirectory look like a drive letter

[Yousuf Khan]

I had a near disaster this morning, when a drive less than 2 months old
started getting excessive retry errors, which resulted in the drive
disappearing from BIOS detection. Long story short, after a bit of
fiddling with the SATA cables I got the thing to work again normally.
But needless to say I don't trust the drive anymore and I'm currently
moving all of its files to another drive with sufficient capacity, and
I'm going to exchange that drive.

What I'd like to do is while I await the warranty replacement drive, I'd
like to continue to access the files in the temporary location. Certain
applications are expecting its data to reside on a specific drive
letter, and they can't be made to change their assumptions. In the old
DOS days, there used to be a couple of utilities, Join and Subst (I
don't remember which was which), which would allow you to create virtual
drives out of subdirectories. What's the equivalent in a Windows XP and
higher?

The Windows Disk Manager allows you to make a drive look like a
subdirectory, but will it allow you to make a subdirectory look like a
drive?

Yousuf Khan

 

[calypso]

The Windows Disk Manager allows you to make a drive look like a
subdirectory, but will it allow you to make a subdirectory look like a
drive?

Windows Explorer

Right click on the subfolder -> Sharing and Security -> Share this folder ->
OK, apply, click whatever needed to share this folder...

Again Windows Explorer -> Tools -> Map Network Drive, and map the shared
folder as a network drive...

Since it's on your computer, no network is needed, but you'll get yourself a
drive letter for that subfolder...

--
"Slomljens li krovopokrivaceg prdija ?" upita sapuno njise tapiro bicuje.
"Ne znam ja nista !" rece murjaka rascvjetava "Ja samo srbocetnikusau guru pedofilanm !"
By runf

Damir Lukic, calypso@_MAKNIOVO_fly.srk.fer.hr
http://inovator.blog.hr
http://calypso-innovations.blogspot.com/

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Windows Explorer

Right click on the subfolder -> Sharing and Security -> Share this folder ->
OK, apply, click whatever needed to share this folder...

Again Windows Explorer -> Tools -> Map Network Drive, and map the shared
folder as a network drive...

Since it's on your computer, no network is needed, but you'll get yourself a
drive letter for that subfolder...

Whoa! Cool idea, I never even thought of that. I won't be able to try it
right away, but it sounds like it might work.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Klout]

I had a near disaster this morning, when a drive less than 2 months old
started getting excessive retry errors, which resulted in the drive
disappearing from BIOS detection. Long story short, after a bit of
fiddling with the SATA cables I got the thing to work again normally.
But needless to say I don't trust the drive anymore and I'm currently
moving all of its files to another drive with sufficient capacity, and
I'm going to exchange that drive.

What I'd like to do is while I await the warranty replacement drive, I'd
like to continue to access the files in the temporary location. Certain
applications are expecting its data to reside on a specific drive
letter, and they can't be made to change their assumptions. In the old
DOS days, there used to be a couple of utilities, Join and Subst (I
don't remember which was which), which would allow you to create virtual
drives out of subdirectories. What's the equivalent in a Windows XP and
higher?

The Windows Disk Manager allows you to make a drive look like a
subdirectory, but will it allow you to make a subdirectory look like a
drive?

Yousuf Khan

subst is still there, at least in XP. Use something like:

subst z: "%USERPROFILE%\My Documents"

To remove the drive letter:

subst z: /d

You could put this in a batch file, then save the batch file in the
Startup folder in your startmenu.

 

[bbbl67]

Windows Explorer

Right click on the subfolder -> Sharing and Security -> Share this folder->
OK, apply, click whatever needed to share this folder...

Again Windows Explorer -> Tools -> Map Network Drive, and map the shared
folder as a network drive...

Since it's on your computer, no network is needed, but you'll get yourself a
drive letter for that subfolder...

Yup, it worked like a charm. Thanks.

Yousuf Khan

 

[calypso]

Yup, it worked like a charm. Thanks.

You're welcome...

--
Grobara pjeva bolestan staklarog trcija jucer
u auli PMF-a (matematika). By runf

Damir Lukic, calypso@_MAKNIOVO_fly.srk.fer.hr
http://inovator.blog.hr
http://calypso-innovations.blogspot.com/

 

[bbbl67]

subst is still there, at least in XP. Use something like:

subst z: "%USERPROFILE%\My Documents"

To remove the drive letter:

subst z: /d

You could put this in a batch file, then save the batch file in the
Startup folder in your startmenu.

You're right, it does seem to be still there. I had been under the
impression that it was removed a long time ago, or only worked with
FAT file systems. Anyways, I think I'll be using the other guy's
locally shared folder method because you can set it to be enabled
during boot in a much simpler fashion.

Yousuf Khan

 

[mscotgrove]

You're right, it does seem to be still there. I had been under the
impression that it was removed a long time ago, or only worked with
FAT file systems. Anyways, I think I'll be using the other guy's
locally shared folder method because you can set it to be enabled
during boot in a much simpler fashion.

  Yousuf Khan

One warning about the subst command. If the drive letter is fairly
low, eg E: or F:, then there can be conflicts if a new USB drive is
added. If you don't add random drives, then the command works very
well.

Michael

 

[Andrew Hamilton]

One warning about the subst command. If the drive letter is fairly
low, eg E: or F:, then there can be conflicts if a new USB drive is
added. If you don't add random drives, then the command works very
well.

Not "can be." WILL BE.

AH.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Not "can be." WILL BE.

AH.

It's probably because even if you put it into autoexec.bat, the hardware
drive mappings will occur before it still.

So it looks like creating a network share that is persistent across
reboots is the superior way to go.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Andrew Hamilton]

It's probably because even if you put it into autoexec.bat, the hardware
drive mappings will occur before it still.

I do my subst commands in an autoexec.bat-type file. Even so, if at a
later time, I plug in USB drive, that USB drive "takes over" the
subst'ed drive letter.

So it looks like creating a network share that is persistent across
reboots is the superior way to go.

Yes, that seems true.