Drive letters not staying the same

[+Warwagon MVC]

This has been an issue i've had since at least Vista / 7 / and still on Windows 8, probably happened on XP also.

 

The issue has to do with drive letters of devices I remove and plug back in. Now obviously if you unplug something and something else takes a drive letter the next time you plug something in and if that other device still has it's drive letter it will get a new one, I get that.

 

But what I don't get, is if it plug something into my sata dock. Like a drive with the drive volume  Offsite 11 and I go into manage and give it the drive letter B: . Now no other device has ever had drive letter B.

 

Sometimes when I put it back in back into the dock it keeps the drive letter B: ... other times it grabs a random drive letter. That's annoying because I have my syncback pointing all of it's backups to B. So then when it doesn't grab the correct drive letter  I have to go back in and manual change it.

 

Has any one else had this issue?

 

 

I tell ya, these talks are so productive.

 

Thanks to macstar I looked it up and syncback SE (not free version) and Pro do support serial numbers and labels. Although I couldn't get serials to work it kept saying couldn't find the drive. BUT I was able to get the labels to work, which is all I need.

 

Source %LABEL=offsite 1-1%\

 

I think my problem is fixed!

[+BudMan MVC]

I have never really ran into this myself.. But couple of tools to get a handle on it. One of my fav for working with usb devices is http://safelyremove.com/features.htm

there is also http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html that has been around forever.

[TAZMINATOR]

Happy Birthday, Warwagon!

 

I have not had that problem on my PCs/laptops.

 

I have not seen that problem on others that I fixed for friends/family all these years.

 

I will keep an eye on that problem on mine or others in the future and keep that software that BudMan mentioned.

[Max Norris]

Can't say I've ever had anything assign itself a floppy drive letter, that's kind of odd.  That said, I usually use Computer Management to assign a device a specific drive letter (or mount in the file system itself, lose the letters entirely), tends to stick, namely USB drives/SD cards.  That tool BudMan linked above looks a bit more flexible.

[+Warwagon MVC]

I have never really ran into this myself.. But couple of tools to get a handle on it. One of my fav for working with usb devices is http://safelyremove.com/features.htm

there is also http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html that has been around forever.

usbsafelyremove.png

 

Thanks I'll try this out.

 

I've seen it happen with customers too. I'll have setup them up with a nightly backup backing up to their external drive on X drive letter. and come back and check a few months later only for it to say scan failure. I check my computer and the drive is there under a different drive letter.

[simonlang]

why would anyone need fixed drive letters? i only remember defining "Z" as the letter of my cd rom drive back in win98 days to prevent it getting a higher letter and coming in between my different hd partitions and mess up the order.

but even ms thought that drive letters were not important anymore and they used to be hidden by default since win xp i believe?

[+Warwagon MVC]

why would anyone need fixed drive letters? i only remember defining "Z" as the letter of my cd rom drive back in win98 days to prevent it getting a higher letter and coming in between my different hd partitions and mess up the order.

but even ms thought that drive letters were not important anymore and they used to be hidden by default since win xp i believe?

 

What if someone uses a backup application that automatically backs up to drive G: ...what happens when G: turns into  H:

[simonlang]

What if someone uses a backup application that automatically backs up to drive G: ...what happens when G: turns into  H:

 

should that backup tool not have the possibility to assign it to the device IDs not letter?

[eddman]

All I can say is that it's not a good idea to use drive letters A and B for anything except FDDs. You better start using some other letter.

[+Warwagon MVC]

I tell ya, these talks are so productive.

 

Thanks to macstar I looked it up and syncback SE (not free version) and Pro do support serial numbers and labels. Although I couldn't get serials to work it kept saying couldn't find the drive. BUT I was able to get the labels to work, which is all I need.

 

I think my problem is fixed!

[Guest]

Has any one else had this issue?

 

Yep, it happens from time to time. I guess there is some weird caching issue happening in the background whenever a device is put in / pulled out.

[ajua]

I tell ya, these talks are so productive.

Thanks to macstar I looked it up and syncback SE (not free version) and Pro do support serial numbers and labels. Although I couldn't get serials to work it kept saying couldn't find the drive. BUT I was able to get the labels to work, which is all I need.

I think my problem is fixed!

That was one of the reasons I choose a backup that supported labels a long time ago. I've several disk drives and USB sticks and label support is a must have feature on any backup program these days.

I'm using Syncovery. It's a great app and has really a ton of features. Its a little expensive but one can try it before buying.

[Bat21UK]

hi the only way I have found is this

Control Panel

System And security

Administrative Tools

Computer Management

Disk Management

then each usb devices right click and change drive letter to the one you want it to be, and next time you plug in the drive will be the same

hope this helps