xp changes drive letter on it's own

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A

A

I have a USB portable hard drive plugged into my computer, which I leave on
all the time. The drive is also always plugged in to the puter.

Every few days, for some reason, XP will change the drive letter on it's
own, thereby screwing up my syncing with that drive with SyncToy. How do I
assign a drive letter to that drive which XP won't change?

Thanks,
John
 
A:

First, I like the name.

I posted to another Newsgroup a month ago, and someone referred me to this
link.

http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html

I haven't install the fix yet, but for $6.00, considering giving it a try.
My USB storage changes drive designation from time to time that causes
programmed backups thru Norton Ghost to report "invalid drive", and not work.
Batch files that relies on mapped drives did not work either.

In my case, it happens whenever I plug in additonal USB devices, or take one
out, and XP appears to assign drive letters from scratch each time.

Hope this helps.
 
By default WindowsXP is written as follows:
A drive - 3 1/2" floppy
B drive - 5 1/4" floppy
C drive - harddrive (boot drive)
D or E drive - CD/DVD drives
Any USB storage device connected will be assigned the next available
alpha letter. You can create harddrive partitions with assigned alpha
letters permanently, but you can't do that with removable USB storage
devices. If
you remove a USB device then another connected device may have its drive
letter changed without your knowledge. In other words, it can't be done.
You can attached an external harddrive and assign a permanent alpha letter.
 
OK. the funny thing is, when it does it, it assigns the next letter to the
one it had before. so K becomes L becomes M, etc.

thanks for your help.
 
Byte said:
By default WindowsXP is written as follows:
A drive - 3 1/2" floppy
B drive - 5 1/4" floppy
C drive - harddrive (boot drive)
D or E drive - CD/DVD drives
Any USB storage device connected will be assigned the next available
alpha letter.
Click to expand...

I'd amend that. A and B are reserved for floppies, but you can assign
either to any kind of floppy. C is probably going to be assigned to
the primary partition on the drive on the first IDE (or other)
controller. Other hard drive partitions will get letters after C, then
CDs and/or DVDs (permanently mounted). These letters can be
manipulated with the Disk Manager software in the OS.

Letters left over after the fixed devices are used for network mapped
drives and removable media.
 
OK. Thanks for the update.

Tim Slattery said:
I'd amend that. A and B are reserved for floppies, but you can assign
either to any kind of floppy. C is probably going to be assigned to
the primary partition on the drive on the first IDE (or other)
controller. Other hard drive partitions will get letters after C, then
CDs and/or DVDs (permanently mounted). These letters can be
manipulated with the Disk Manager software in the OS.

Letters left over after the fixed devices are used for network mapped
drives and removable media.
Click to expand...
 
By default WindowsXP is written as follows:
A drive - 3 1/2" floppy
B drive - 5 1/4" floppy
Click to expand...

Can you verify that, please?

Normally I'd expect the OS to see the first diskette drive as A: and
second as B:, irrespective of whether these were 3.5" or 5.25". IOW
if I had 2 x 1.44M (3.5") I'd expect them to be A: and B:, and if the
first diskette drive was a 5.25" 1.2M and the second was a 3.5" 1.44M
then I'd expect A: to be 1.2M because that drive was first, and not
the 1.44M because that drive was the 3.5" unit.
C drive - harddrive (boot drive)
D or E drive - CD/DVD drives
Click to expand...

OK, I see this is an "assuming the usual setup" type of description.
What really goes on is both more complicated, and different to the way
that Win9x would behave.

Yes, A: and B: are reserved for legacy diskette drives, and hard drive
volumes start from C: onwards. Also, whatever hard drive volume is
the boot volume, cannot be changed. But that may not always be C:

Other drive letters can be changed to taste, no matter how they are
initially assigned. The initial order for a single HD with one
primary partition and multiple logical volumes on an extended, is
first the primary, then the logicals, then the optical drive(s).

Things can go awry if certain drives or devices are present at the
time the OS is installed, e.g. bootable USB sticks, LS120 or Zip
disks, etc. In such cases, these devices may get the letter C: while
the HD primary containing the OS gets a higher letter.
Any USB storage device connected will be assigned the next available
alpha letter. You can create harddrive partitions with assigned alpha
letters permanently, but you can't do that with removable USB storage
devices. If you remove a USB device then another connected device
may have its drive letter changed without your knowledge.
Click to expand...

I have a PC with one HD (C:, logicals D:, E:, F:) and one DVD writer
that I have changed from G: to H:. If I add USB sticks or external
HDs, then these get letter G:, then I:, J: etc. while the DVD drive
stays as H: and the HD keeps its letters.

If I add other (internal) hard drives, they get letters G:, I:, J:
etc. "stepping over" the DVD. This is in contrast to the way Win9x
would behave, where the new HDs' primaries would grab D:, E: etc. and
"push up" the logical and DVD drive letters.

For one HD I often use, I fixed the two volumes to S: and Z:

If I remove the DVD drive, then when I replace it, it comes up as G:
again. This is in contrast with the other hard drives; if I remove
them and then add them again, they retain the letters I assigned them.

Your case is odd, as I have not seen XP spontaneously change the
letter assigned to a drive during a Windows session. Does something
cause your USB to reset and become re-ennumerated?

--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -
Click to expand...
Never turn your back on an installer program
 
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