USB Drive not assigned drive letter upon connection

[tkindree]

The subject pretty much explains the issue. I've seen this happen on Windows 2003 Server, and XP Pro, both updated with latest service packs and motherboard drivers. These are different computers, different enclosures, so it's not a matter of reinstalling.

Different drives at different companies (one company uses it as offsite backup, swapping between 3 drives), once connected will not be auto-assigned a USB drive letter. I have to manually go into device manager, assign a drive letter, and then the drive will show in Explorer. If I safely remove hardware, or NOT safely remove hardware, and then reconnect the drive, it is not auto-assigned a drive letter.

Does anyone know how this might happen, or whether Windows is trying to assign a drive letter that's already in use? Is there a reg key for "Next available drive letter" ?

Thanks.

 

[Paperdoc]

What drive letter are you using? I remember the old DOS days when you could set an Environment Variable in your Config.sys file for Lastdrive = . By default DOS had assumed a value like F: or something, and you had to change that if you were using many drives. Although Windows does everything from its Registry now, MAYBE there is an assumed max value it won't try to exceed? On my machine with XP SP2 I'm up to drive I: as the last automatically-assigned name.