managing external drives

[wguru]

Hi everyone, my first post and I hope I chose the right forum.

I'm unfamiliar with mapping drives, if that's even a solution to my issue.

Here's what I am dealing with.

My main drive automatically assigns the first external HD I go to use as drive g. The same goes for when I go to use any pen drive (the OS always assigns the pen drive a drive letter g). And the same goes for any "added" drives I start up (the next drive will be assigned h, i, etc.).

This's creating problems with software and/or shortcuts I have on the pen
drives and ehd's, because the software or shortcuts are tagged to a
particular drive letter's directories and unless I fastidiously keep track of which pen drive and which ehd needs to have which drive letter assigned, the software or shortcut's fail and the files don't show up or the programs don't work.

At first I thought maybe the drive letter assignments might be being
switched due their having been initially used on one of my three USB ports, and I tried dedicating a particular USB port for a particluar pen drive or ehd, but still the drive letters are being assigned based on which is started up first and/or are assigned in the order I introduce the drives
when using more than one at a time on my OS (drive g, h, i, etc).

I guess ehd's and/or pen drives themselves might not have the capacity to actually 'embed' whichever drive letter I need to use them as, but if
there's a means to automate managing their needed drive letters (to avoid 'file not found' and 'unknown program' prompts), I'd sure like to know how.

Otherwise, I've taken to avoiding much use of installing programs on my
ehd's and pen drives, not only because of those prompts, but some of them are so proprietary, they refuse to even work until I go to the vendor and re-register the application. Didn't mean to muddy up the issues by this last comment.

Basically, I'm left to having to remember or mark my pen drives with their intended use and necessary drive letters, and assuring that I only use them accordingly. Ya, I know big effort there.

 

[evongugg]

Try this:

How to change drive letter assignments in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844/en-us

 

[wguru]

Thanks for the reply, but since MS and drives are both pretty dumb (i.e.; neither seems to know what they're doing), instead of working with the bug (as MS would have you do), it seems to me simpler and easier to work-around this bug (once one understands what drives exacerbates the bug's issues).

I've since experimented and found what seems to be a simplest and easiest means in managing drive letters for EHD's and pen drives, especially for those EHD's which 'tend' to remember their letter assignments when in fact they are easily accidentally changing their intended drive letters.

As such, what with the real bug issue being that it seems nobody is making programmable software available or known which defeats MS's blindly assigning drive letters (no less sequentially).

What's needed for users of multiple drives, is a program that works with MS's bug such drives so programmed, will always be seen by the users system as the letter the users wants, and not what MS wants, nor are we to have to work around MS's nearsightedness by requiring users to manually assign/re-assign drive letters.

As such, rather than users working with this bug by drilling into one's OS and manually re-assigning drive letters, it seems simpler and easier to work-around the bug.

Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate your reply, even though it was the text book reply and you kindly posted the link as well, but working with something that doesn't work (per say) to start with, to me seems to ignore the fact that it's simpler to introduce EHD's in the order that besets their desired drive letter assignments.

The only fly in the ointment is where some EHD's 'tend' to retain their assigned drive letter assignments (be they the desired letters or not), I've since posting here, discovered (and resolved to) first recognizing how it is that my EHD's are being inappropriately lettered.

I found that when I've inadvertently 'swapped' drive letters, and the particular EHD 'tends' to retain the wrong drive letter (e.g.; despite whichever order the EHD's are re-introduced, they still if accidentally drive letter swapped somewhat difficult to un-swap their letters.

So rather than drilling one's system to get to the drive letter assigning feature, it's easier for me to force my EHD to correct it's drive letter by using a pen drive* (mine never tend to retain their drive letter) as a pawn so as to force the first of the two EHD's to re-letter when introduced on top of my pen drive.

To clarify, my particular EHD's and pen drives, when introduced to my OS's USB ports, usually are assigned the first available sequential drive letter, and in my case it's drive G. But unlike pen drives, my EHD's tend to retain their assigned drive letters which when they accidentally get their letters reversed.

As such, I've decided it's simpler and easier (when needed) to force my EHD's drive letters by first inserting one of my pen drive's and leaving it inserted until using it as a pawn to set up housekeeping as letter G.

Then I introduce my EHD (which earlier was accidentally assigned drive letter G). Presto, even though it tends to retain its letter assignment, it is forced to change from G to H.

Then to get my other pesky EHD to change from H to G, I disconnect both the pen and EHD drive, reconnect the correctly lettered EHD G and then introduce the other pesky EHD G which forces it to change to H.

Thereafter, I just need to remember that when using my EHD's (which tend to retain letter assignments) that I must not have a pen drive (or iPod) connected before I introduce the pesky EHDs.

Note if all this seems more anal than it really is, I should explain that I need to keep the one EHD as G because all my backed up music files are on it, and I only keep my 4 & 5 star music on my C drive. As such, unless the EHD is correctly letter assigned, iTunes doesn't find the externally stored music files.

Thanks again for the reply, but as I see it, this issue (until more readily resolved by software) is simpler to "work-around" rather than to 'working with the bug'.