How to make Windows assign the same drive letter to all externals

Thanks Kaktussoft for pointing it out. That is yet another condition to be fulfilled for successful implementation of the scheme. So all MBR disks with the same start sector :). I have since edited my post to put in that.

And Yes, unique ID can be changed with diskpart.

Laurent Kempé | Windows 7, Disk is offline because it has a signature collision

Two Seagate External Drives, one not recognised

jumanji said:

Some people come up with a special and specific requirement. And so it is with pkerr. https://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-...ml#post2680332

He wants Windows to assign the same letter for all his external drives which he is using for backups. He will be connecting just one drive at a time..........

..........Give the same Unique ID to all the drives and Windows will assign the same drive letter when you connect one and only one......

Another innovative idea ( which I haven't tried but what I think should work ) after a break. ( Time for me to hit the sack now.).........

Note: The above method will work only in case of all MBR disks with the same "start sector". (Windows by design formats all HDDs with start Sector at LBA 2048; Other partitioning/formatting software may put the start sector at LBA 63)

When I was reading pkerr's thread, what immediately struck me was that it can be done by givng the same unique id to all the external drives one wants to have the same drive letter. There was no doubt about.

Simultaneously another idea flashed in my mind.

Everyday when I open my computer a virtual sheep (virtual Clone Drive) strikes my optical nerves. OMG ! Why can't I create as many number of virtual drives as will just leave one drive letter free? Then any external drive connected will always be forced to take the lone left-out drive letter?

( Incidentally in my case I had 16 drive letters free and Slysoft Virtual Clone Drive can create 15 virtual clone drives . And so here it is:



Now any external drive I connect will be forced to take on the only available drive letter X.)

Ok, and then this led me to another thought. Instead of virtual drives, use another external drive with n-1 partitions ( n= number of free drive letters) and one will have that one drive letter left that will get assigned to any other external drive connected.

So that completes this thread. No questions :). These are just two thoughts. How practical, let the user decide.

This is an older thread, but hopefully someone will have some updated instructions. This thread refers to MBR drives and how to give them the same ID so they will grab the same drive letter. What about GPT drives. Is there a way to do the same for a GPT drive so that multiple drives can be connected one at a time but obtain the same drive letter every time?