Windows 7: Disk Management

I have several external hard drives that I take from one windows 7 64 bit computer to other windows 7 64 bit computers. This is a graphics company. The hard drives hold large gigabytes of film data thus the need to constantly move data from the hard drive to specific computers.

In every instance I have to perform this ritual:
Open control panel> storage disk >management >chose the disk number >change drive letter and path >
Add

Most folks who don't know this routine will be prompted to Format hard drive. If folks knew that the drive needed the hard drive add misery could be avoided.

Thus several times a day I need to add a drive letter path because somehow the letter disappears.

Is there a method to lock in a drive letter? Just curious.
Thanks!

I "think" that if you actually assign this drive a drive letter (in Disk Management), higher than what was automatically assigned, as long as the drives are the same type/size, etc., the system may remember it and just load it up as it was before. I'm not sure about SATA drives, but I do have a portable HDD on USB, and I assigned it drive letter "N:". Every time it's plugged in, it always is drive "N:". This may be a USB function. I always assign my BD and DVD drives, Y and Z. I also have multiple HD's and an SSD in between the primary boot Drive C, before and after drive N:.

In lieu of all that, assuming that your PC supports USB 3.0, you may also consider a USB 3.0 (not 2.0) portable HD case setup, where in this case, I'm fairly certain that your drives will now be "hot swappable", making your life that much easier. However, if you're interactively doing graphics editing on that "portable" drive, even USB 3.0 may not be as fast as a direct SATA connection.

Under normal circumstances you shouldn't have to manually assign a drive letter each time a drive is connected. And it's certainly not normal to be prompted to format a drive with an existing a recognizable filesystem! Offhand, I would guess there's something amiss with the way the drives are partitioned. Edit: Apparently not. I tried a few things with non-standard partitioning (incorrect ID, format entire disk) and everything worked as it should.