Assignment of letters to hard drives

When I connected my new USB hard drive to my computer, the computer assigned
the letter H to that drive. Letters I, J, K. & L. were assigned to the
various memory card slots that came with the computer. When I'm through
backing up my internal hard drive with this new USB drive, I disconnect it
and turn it off.

Now I have purchased another external hard drive with a USB connection.
When I plug it in, it also is assigned the letter H, and if I plug in the
first drive again, it now has the letter M. IOW, the computer assigns
letters arbitrarily in the order drives are connected. This is rather
confusing. Is there a way to preserve the letter assignment regardless of
whether the drive is connected, so that my backup program will not become
confused?

Thanks,

Norm

normanstrong wrote:
> When I connected my new USB hard drive to my computer, the computer
> assigned the letter H to that drive. Letters I, J, K. & L. were
> assigned to the various memory card slots that came with the
> computer. When I'm through backing up my internal hard drive with
> this new USB drive, I disconnect it and turn it off.
>
> Now I have purchased another external hard drive with a USB
> connection. When I plug it in, it also is assigned the letter H,
> and if I plug in the first drive again, it now has the letter M. IOW, the
> computer assigns letters arbitrarily in the order drives
> are connected. This is rather confusing. Is there a way to
> preserve the letter assignment regardless of whether the drive is
> connected, so that my backup program will not become confused?

Natively - not really.

Try:
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

On Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:42:42 -0700, <normanstrong@comcast.net> wrote:

> When I connected my new USB hard drive to my computer, the computer assigned
> the letter H to that drive. Letters I, J, K. & L. were assigned to the
> various memory card slots that came with the computer. When I'm through
> backing up my internal hard drive with this new USB drive, I disconnect it
> and turn it off.
>
> Now I have purchased another external hard drive with a USB connection.
> When I plug it in, it also is assigned the letter H,


That's to be expected. Plug in a thumb drive or a digital camera
instead, and it too will get the letter H:


> and if I plug in the
> first drive again, it now has the letter M. IOW, the computer assigns
> letters arbitrarily in the order drives are connected.


Yes, but I wouldn't say "arbitrarily." That's the way it's designed to
work.


> This is rather
> confusing. Is there a way to preserve the letter assignment regardless of
> whether the drive is connected, so that my backup program will not become
> confused?


No, although you might try the third-party tool that Shenan suggested.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
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