Locking drive letters

avhawaii wrote on 6/8/2005, 1:57 PM
Does anyone know of a way in WinXP to lock the drive letter of an external drive? You probably know what I mean- when you move an external drive from one computer to another the OS will assign the next available drive letter that is open and sometimes it is not the same as the last computer it was plugged into so all your file links are messed up. Can you force WinXP to recognize the new drive as another letter, the same as the previous computer?

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 6/8/2005, 2:04 PM
Start / Settings / Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer Management / Disk Manager. Right-mouse-button click on the Volume and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths.

I won't guarantee it will retain this setting from session to session though. You may have to do this each time you connect. Then again, it may be nice and keep it for you.
avhawaii wrote on 6/8/2005, 5:20 PM
If I have multiple external drives, does it make sense to assign different letters to each so that if 2 or more drives end up on the same computer it will not conflict? That way, Vegas will recognize the same drive no matter which computer it is plugged into.
Jameson_Prod wrote on 6/8/2005, 5:45 PM
The drive letter will "stick" for the machine it is assigned on only. I have several USB flash drives that I use and they are all assigned "R" for removable. They always come up R: on my desktop but will come up as "E:" at work.

I personally use names "Maxtor 200", "Project Name", etc. The drive name is written to the drive rather than being assigned by Windows. That way, I just look for the name and not a partiular drive letter. Works for me.....

Good luck.
rmack350 wrote on 6/9/2005, 9:40 AM
Yes, make sure you name the volume as well as assigning a drive letter. I start my removable drive assignments at Z and work my way down to avoid conflicts.

Also, stick a label onto the drive case saying what it's name and letter are.

Rob Mack
avhawaii wrote on 6/9/2005, 4:03 PM
Thanks for all your help, It is a lot easier than I thought. This forum is great!
Nat wrote on 6/19/2005, 9:42 AM
Note that you can also mount an external drive as a folder. On my computer, if I remove my external disk and put it back again without closing the computer, the driver letter will increment which is very annoying, given the fact I can't change it back until I reboot the computer. To solve this I mounted my drive as a folder and it works very well :

Check this page for information :
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1676&page=9