Remembering drive letters

[HankAZ]

I just started seeing an issue with my external drives connected to my laptop running Win7 Home Premium x64. I have 2 external drives connected via USB to my laptop. In the past, when I unplugged the drives, and later reconnected them, the previously assigned drive letters (X: and Y: ) were again properly assigned to the two external drives. Lately, when I reconnect the USB drives, they get assigned the next drive letters in sequence (E: and F:, respectively). What is causing this behavior and how can I force them to remember their old "assigned" letter? I assigned the drive letters using the manage computer, disk management, change drive letter process. I always use the "safely remove hardware and eject media" feature prior to unplugging the drives... and I have not changed any behavior on my part.

Both stay connected to the same powered USB hub... rather than messing with the drives individually, I just use the remove hardware applet and then unplug the hub. I always use the same USB port for the hub, and the drive themselves stay connected to the hub... BTW, this used to work perfectly under both XP and Win7 ... until recently...

 

[not so gray matter]

Here ya go:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/77899-hard-drives-lock-drive-letter.html

 

[HankAZ]

That was the process that I used to set the drives up... and it worked perfectly on both XP and Win7 until a couple of days ago... at that point when I disconnected the drives and reconnected them, the drive letters no longer stuck... and the system assigned new drive letters.

 

[logicearth]

So what change was made to the system a couple of days ago?

 

[MilesAhead]

Like it says on the referenced page, it's best if you assign the next available. Also you can set "hide empty drives" to hide removable drives that are usually empty like memory stick slots. If the drive letters you assign are the next available they won't shift around so much.

I use the letters toward the end of the alphabet for mapped network drives.

 

[HankAZ]

So what change was made to the system a couple of days ago?

Nothing, as far as I know.

 

[HankAZ]

Like it says on the referenced page, it's best if you assign the next available. Also you can set "hide empty drives" to hide removable drives that are usually empty like memory stick slots. If the drive letters you assign are the next available they won't shift around so much.

I use the letters toward the end of the alphabet for mapped network drives.

Yes, I read that part, but it has worked perfectly until now... for over 3 years with XP and at least 8 months with Window 7...

C: is my system drive
D: is a recovery partition
E: is a SD card slot
W: is my Writable CD/DVD drive
X: is the eXternal drive #1
Y: is the external drive #2

 

[whs]

have a look at this solution: USB drive letter manager - USBDLM

 

[HankAZ]

have a look at this solution: USB drive letter manager - USBDLM

Interesting... but why do I need a 3rd party app to do what Win7 did perfectly well until a few days ago?

 

[MilesAhead]

Like it says on the referenced page, it's best if you assign the next available. Also you can set "hide empty drives" to hide removable drives that are usually empty like memory stick slots. If the drive letters you assign are the next available they won't shift around so much.

I use the letters toward the end of the alphabet for mapped network drives.

Yes, I read that part, but it has worked perfectly until now... for over 3 years with XP and at least 8 months with Window 7...

C: is my system drive
D: is a recovery partition
E: is a SD card slot
W: is my Writable CD/DVD drive
X: is the eXternal drive #1
Y: is the external drive #2

"until now" being the operative phrase. Getting something to work is one thing. Figuring out why it died is for autopsies.

 

[logicearth]

Nothing, as far as I know.

Interesting... but why do I need a 3rd party app to do what Win7 did perfectly well until a few days ago?

It would be impossible to fix this without knowing what happened between those few days ago. Did you install anything? Change any settings? Kicked the dog?

 

[Bill2]

As long its the same computer and the same port, you may be able to assign a permanent letter if you go through the msc like this:

1) Click on Start button, type "Compmgmt.msc", then hit enter.
2) In the window that opens, expand "Storage" in the left pane, then click on "Disk Management".
3) In the right pane, right click on your USB drive, then click on "Change drive letter and paths...".
4) In the small window that pops up saying Allow access...., click on "Change" at the bottom.
5) In the next popup, click on "Assign the following drive letter:" and choose one from the drop down list that appears.
6) Click OK, OK till all windows are closed.

Test if it works.

 

[HankAZ]

As long its the same computer and the same port, you may be able to assign a permanent letter if you go through the msc like this:

1) Click on Start button, type "Compmgmt.msc", then hit enter.
2) In the window that opens, expand "Storage" in the left pane, then click on "Disk Management".
3) In the right pane, right click on your USB drive, then click on "Change drive letter and paths...".
4) In the small window that pops up saying Allow access...., click on "Change" at the bottom.
5) In the next popup, click on "Assign the following drive letter:" and choose one from the drop down list that appears.
6) Click OK, OK till all windows are closed.

Test if it works.

Uh, no, it didn't work.

That is how I set it up when I got this laptop about 6 months ago. That was how I set up my previous computer over 3 years ago... and again after I upgraded it to Win7 about 8 months ago.

When I disconnected the external drives and reconnected them (after 7 months of it remembering the drive letters), it lost its mind and assigned different drive letters. Then I went back into the disk management applet and had to set it up again (using the same process that I had used originally, and the one that everyone suggests that I use to "fix" it)... still no go.

It would not be a huge deal except that these external drives are used to store backups that are created van automated process that requires specific data paths for the destination...

 

[imacken]

Why doesn't MS get rid of the whole drive letter thing anyway?
Surely it's just a legacy thing that has no place in a modern OS.

 

[pyx]

To disable the System Maintenance troubleshooter, follow these steps:

Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
Under System and Security, click Find and fix problems.
On the left navigation pane, click Change settings.
Set Computer Maintenance to Off.

Works for my so far.

 

[mitchell65]

HankAZ
I have read carefully what you have said about the USB hub but have you tried connecting one of your drives "X" or "Y" directly to the USB port on the PC. Just to test it's not a hub issue which I think it might be!

 

[alphanumeric]

Why doesn't MS get rid of the whole drive letter thing anyway?
Surely it's just a legacy thing that has no place in a modern OS.

They did sort of. You can set Windows 7 to not display them if you want. I've done it on my system. As long as you use good volume labels it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[mitchell65]

Why doesn't MS get rid of the whole drive letter thing anyway?
Surely it's just a legacy thing that has no place in a modern OS.

They did sort of. You can set Windows 7 to not display them if you want. I've done it on my system. As long as you use good volume labels it shouldn't be a problem.

But I use a video editing program that like most, I believe, only stores the links and instructions, like transistions, effects, titles etc to video clips not the actual clips. The project files are text based files containing just these instructions and links. As most of my contacts in the video world store their actual clips on external hard drives and often work on more than one computer it is importatnt that the drive letters stay consistent. If they don't when you open a project you get the dreaded "Clips need relinking". That's why most of us designate drive letters at the top end of the alphabet so they don't get altered when Windows throws the occassional wobbly.

 

[HankAZ]

To disable the System Maintenance troubleshooter, follow these steps:

Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
Under System and Security, click Find and fix problems.
On the left navigation pane, click Change settings.
Set Computer Maintenance to Off.

Works for my so far.

What is this all about? Are you suggesting that the System Maintenance troubleshooter has suddenly started "fixing" things and is responsible for this? I don't really see how... once the drives are connected, their drive letters remain consistent with whatever they happen to be. The only issue is when I reconnect them to my system, that the system itself assigns the next sequential drive letters to the drives, not the ones that I had manually assigned via the manage disk storage applet.

I don't see how this "fix" is germane.

 

[alphanumeric]

Why doesn't MS get rid of the whole drive letter thing anyway?
Surely it's just a legacy thing that has no place in a modern OS.

They did sort of. You can set Windows 7 to not display them if you want. I've done it on my system. As long as you use good volume labels it shouldn't be a problem.

But I use a video editing program that like most, I believe, only stores the links and instructions, like transistions, effects, titles etc to video clips not the actual clips. The project files are text based files containing just these instructions and links. As most of my contacts in the video world store their actual clips on external hard drives and often work on more than one computer it is importatnt that the drive letters stay consistent. If they don't when you open a project you get the dreaded "Clips need relinking". That's why most of us designate drive letters at the top end of the alphabet so they don't get altered when Windows throws the occassional wobbly.

Fair enough, my guess is it was patch Tuesday that messed things up for you. Just reassign them and see how long they stick. In reference to what I said above, the drive letters are still there, they are just hidden. It's just a visual thing, stuff gets sorted by volume label instead of drive letter. I personally like the clean look with them hidden.