Argh: Drive letter assignment for removable storage

[tfboy]

Is there a way you can tell windows which drive letter to assign to a removable storage device, i.e. USB key or harddrive on usb / firewire?

My laptop insists on giving every removable store the letter G which is already mapped to one of my network drives.

I can get it going by changing it in disk manager, but it's a real pain having to do this everytime I plug a damn key in.

[Paul Adams]

This is XP?

Is it trying to assign the next available drive letter for the same key in the same USB port?
As I understand it, XP retains a list of settings per device per port, so if you plug a USB memory stick into USB port 1 and assign it a drive letter, the unplug it and plug it back in, it should get the same drive letter.
If you then plugged it into USB port 2 there would be a little delay as XP sees it as another "instance" of that device class and sets up a default profile for it which you would then need to change as before.

It seems that drive letters mapped through NET USE (a network drive mapping) do not exist in the same security context as removable devices so they cannot check for conflicts.

Do you need a drive letter mapped?
If so, can you switch the drive mappings to start at Z: and work down?
If not, then just use UNC paths to access network resources when they are needed - drag & drop the shares into "My Network Places" for a set of commonly-used ones.

Also found this article which may be of interest, depending on how you are using these removable devices:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.c...id=1676&page=9.
Never used this feature myself, though.

[tfboy]

Yes, it is XP.

I need to have the network drives mapped, can't work on UNC paths because apps refer to the network locations as drive letters

You're right though - if I reconnect a device which has been connected in the past, it seems to remember what letter it was last at so it's not a problem. But in my work, I have to plug in usb keys from everyone so it's fustrating having to do the device management -> disk management every time.

I was hoping there would be some kind of key in the registy which would determine which is the first free drive letter to use. As you said, it doesn't take network drives into accound so it uses the first "free" letter which happens to be the first of my three network drives.

[directhex]

this would be why my network drives in windows have always started at z:

[kalniel]

It's a bug in XP that's never been fixed. Doesn't look like they're ever going to bother with it. I have problems with it at home (can get around by remapping network drives) and at work (no work around).

[SnAzBaZ]

We have seen similar issues with a USB DVD recorder. What seems to work for some of our customers (not all mind) is if you set the USB device to use a drive letter like Z, then unplug it when the PC is off, after doing a reboot with it plugged in, windows *might* remeber to use Z: next time.

Like I say, this sometimes seems to work, sometimes it doesnt...

[KermitTheFrog]

Picture this.

A corporate environment, with a local C and D (CD/DVD), and network drives starting from F: (the company I work for has always had hard coded drive letters).

Plug in a USB multi memory card reader, and it automatically adds four drive letters, (E, F, G & H), and therefore breaking our network environment.

So we contacted Microsoft (we have a bit of flex, as we have 7000 employees worldwide), and the response was it is a known issue, and they are looking at what can be done about it, but wouldn't give any timescales.

The only way out for us was to not use that memory card reader, but one that provided a single drive letter, for multible types.

Perhaps it will be fixed by Longhorn/WinVista?!

Matt

[directhex]

i don't get drive letter issues in linux

[Zak33]

i don't get drive letter issues in linux

sit down and behave.,,,,you little trouble maker

[tfboy]

Ahh. I see Matt KermitTheFrog has exactly the same issues as I have - network mapped drives which I cannot change (as they're for work and apps rely on those letters).

Everytime I stick a new USB storage device, it insists on using G: which is the first of three network maps I have.

Sounds like I had better not hold my breath for a fix then