Windows 10 mounts drives with letters already assigned to a network drive

By +Warwagon
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Grand Master

+Warwagon MVC

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I've seen this on both my main machines. For example, If I have a network drive mounted as D: and if I plug into an external hard drive Windows will also mount that as D and then the network share won't work until I unplug the external drive, or until I assign it a different drive letter.

 

Why isn't it smart enough to see D is already assigned to a network drive and to give the external a different drive letter.

 

Anyone else having this problem or is it just me?

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Grand Master

goretsky Supervisor

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Hello,

 

I've noticed it periodically for a while; I'm not sure when it began, or if it is even unique to Windows 10.

 

My workaround has been to run DiskPart (filename: DISKPART.EXE), issue a "LIST VOLUME" command to list all the disk volumes, issue a "SELECT VOLUME n" command (where n is the number of the offending volume, and then issue a "ASSIGN LETTER x" command (where x is the new drive letter for the volume).

 

It is a bit cumbersome, but it works.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

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Rookie

Ahazuarus

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Had this problem on my domain.  Solution? Move network drive letters further down the alphabet.  Sure, employees working longer than I've been alive complained but it solved the issue company-wide.  This issue was cropping up on servers too.

On 10/30/2017 at 0:14 AM, goretsky said:

My workaround has been to run DiskPart ...

Not a solution for optical drives.

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Experienced

CrossCheck

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Seriously..... Who puts their network drive near the beginning of the alphabet. Besides you, no one. In 20 plus years i have never seen a network drive at or near the beginning of the alphabet. Everywhere i have worked, network drives are near the end.

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Grand Master

T3X4S

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12 hours ago, CrossCheck said:

Seriously..... Who puts their network drive near the beginning of the alphabet. Besides you, no one. In 20 plus years i have never seen a network drive at or near the beginning of the alphabet. Everywhere i have worked, network drives are near the end.

Well Gee - maybe because in enterprise situations, there is the mindset that other drive letters might become used, therefore - putting a letter far from C, D, etc - makes sense as it allows for expansion.
But for someone who is dealing with personal machines, and can reroute, relabel, reconfigure without causing disruptions, its not a big deal.

But - I guess, since YOU have never seen it before - then it must be wrong, right ? 

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Grand Master

+Warwagon MVC

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16 hours ago, CrossCheck said:

Seriously..... Who puts their network drive near the beginning of the alphabet. Besides you, no one. In 20 plus years i have never seen a network drive at or near the beginning of the alphabet. Everywhere i have worked, network drives are near the end.

3 things.

 

1) That is a good point as to why I haven't run into this problem that much until now. My main workstation use to have all the hard drives in it that I would access, D, F, G, and S they weren't mapped network drives. Then I put them in a little computer in a washroom and so to make it easier to access I just put the mapped drive letters the same as the ones they were before.

 

2) Regardless of which drive letter I use, windows SHOULD be smart enough to say "Oh gee... I want to use D but it looks like D is already used as a network drive, i'm going to use E instead"

 

3) Because most people don't use drive letters at or near the beginning of the alphabet might be why this bug hasn't been reported yet.

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Grand Master

Dick Montage

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17 hours ago, CrossCheck said:

Seriously..... Who puts their network drive near the beginning of the alphabet. Besides you, no one. In 20 plus years i have never seen a network drive at or near the beginning of the alphabet. Everywhere i have worked, network drives are near the end.

Well that whole post shows not only your attitude but also lack of comprehension.  Beginning or end of the alphabet is immaterial - Windows should not be doing this!

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Veteran

+Biscuits Brown MVC

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I've actually seen this behavior and it goes back long before Windows 10. My guess is Windows is reading that drive letter off the drive itself and simply gives priority to a local drive over a network mapped drive. I have mixed thoughts on whether or not this is the best way to do this as I can see it both ways.   

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Grand Master

Jim K Global Moderator

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Interesting issue...one that I've never encountered...though all the network drives I've worked with were further up the alphabet. Surprised Windows doesn't "lock" the drive letter when in use (regardless of it being local/network).  Is this a "problem" with other operating systems (like Linux)? 

 

Anyway, learn something new everyday. :)

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Grand Master

CrashG

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Just throwing this out there as a possible reason. I'd be willing to bet the reason it ignores the mapped drive letter is the physical connected drive takes priority. As to why, beats me. I've always seen and used letters higher up (like X,Y,Z) as network drives.

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Grand Master

T3X4S

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All good points by everyone.  In the end, the letters are, in fact, arbitrary.
Personally, I would assign N as a NAS
O for cloud (online)
Z for something that was one off (put it far away as possible)

 

But, in the end, Windows should know better (and usually does)
Letters are arbitrary.

One company I worked for was different.
Every server farm had a theme.
One farm was all LoTR names
One was all Star Wars names.
One was Disney characters
The drive letters were usually the first letter of that character, phrase, entitity.

Example:   M for Mordor
 

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Grand Master

goretsky Supervisor

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Hello,

 

Can you provide a link for upvoting (or whatever the term is), if possible?

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

12 hours ago, warwagon said:

Well, I reported it in the Feedback app.

 

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Grand Master

Anibal P

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On 11/1/2017 at 4:58 PM, CrossCheck said:

Seriously..... Who puts their network drive near the beginning of the alphabet. Besides you, no one. In 20 plus years i have never seen a network drive at or near the beginning of the alphabet. Everywhere i have worked, network drives are near the end.

Don't get a job in healthcare then 

We have apps that are hard coded to an A drive, which is now a network drive, same with B,D and E, it all depends on the business needs, not what some entitled admin thinks is right 

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Grand Master

+Warwagon MVC

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8 minutes ago, Anibal P said:

Don't get a job in healthcare then 

We have apps that are hard coded to an A drive, which is now a network drive, same with B,D and E, it all depends on the business needs, not what some entitled admin thinks is right 

Correct. He made the mistake of speaking in absolutes by saying "no one" .. that always gets people in trouble :D

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