Windows 7: assign the same letter to an external hard drive

Question

I use external drives containing music and video that are associated with programs/players and their media libraries according to the drive letter that was assigned to the drives at the moment of the association.

These drives are not always connected to the computer and sometime when re-connected they are assigned different letters which makes impossible for the associated programs/players to access them.

Is it possible to make Windows assign the same drive letter to a certain external drive?

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I see here that USBDLM may "assign letters for a specific USB drive by putting an INI file on the drive"

How to do that exactly?

Solution

If this is just for a single computer (i.e., you're not trying to make it the same drive letter no matter what computer it plugs into) then you can do it using the Windows Disk Management tool.

• Open the run command and type diskmgmt.msc to open the tool.
• Locate your USB drive in the list of devices.
• Right-click the drive and select Change drive letters and paths...
• Click the Change... button.
• Choose a new letter from the dropdown list and press OK.
• Press OK through any warnings it gives about programs not working if you change the letter.

And you're done! From now on, when you plug this USB into this computer, it will attempt to use that drive letter again each time.

Note that this can cause problems if you have assigned two USB drives to the same letter at different times and then plug them both in.

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My experience with this has been that Windows will avoid using the reserved drive letter unless it needs it (running out of letters). To be safe, just pick a letter further into the alphabet and it will not attempt to use that one by default. To all the drives I use regularly, I do connect each and assign it a letter.

Comments

[Admin]

but would the given letter be reserved for my drive, or is it possible that it be assigned to another drive when mine is not plugged? (in which case i should assign letters to the other possible drives that might be used)

[Admin]

also: if i want the disk manager to keep the already assigned letter, what should i do? just opening the disk manager makes the already assigned letter to be used each time or should i assign a new letter for this to happen?

[Admin]

another interesting possibility might be this: connecting as much external drives as possible at the same time will assign a certain letter to each of them which in the future will be remembered as specific when only one of them is connected. can you confirm this?

[techturtle]

My experience with this has been that Windows will avoid using the reserved drive letter unless it needs it (running out of letters). To be safe, just pick a letter further into the alphabet and it will not attempt to use that one by default. To all the drives I use regularly, I do connect each and assign it a letter.