Drive letter order???

[daydreamer]

I usually insert USB drives and 2tb old kind of external and they end up different drive letters D,E,F, is there a system that decides on drive size or remember first usage?

[Shintaro]

I usually insert USB drives and 2tb old kind of external and they end up different drive letters D,E,F, is there a system that decides on drive size or remember first usage?

Is this what you are looking for HERE?

[zedd151]

Iirc, when you insert a portable drive, the next available letter in the sequence will be used once the drive is inserted.
Example if you  have C: drive for your OS, and D: drive for CD/DVD drive and nothing else once you plug in a USB drive it should be given the letter E:.
Now if you unplug the E: drive the OS should release letter "E" for usage again. Then replugging in that usb drive or another, it should be given letter "E".
There may be the case where a letter is not released (for unknown reasons and no message given) kinda screwing things up. Also it may assign drive letters differently if the usb drive is already plugged in when you start your computer. It may depend on whether it assigns drive letter to a specific order of usb jacks. Not sure whether a certain usb jack would take precedence over another though.
I used to leave an external hard drive plugged in always, and used hard coded paths to that drive. I did have one instance where that drive was assigned a different letter messing things up a bit. I no long use hard coded paths to an external drive... I have since made a new partition to use in place of the external drive.


Good tip, shintaro! 

[Vortex]

Hi daydreamer,

The registry is storing all the relevant information at :

Code Select Expand

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/backup-and-storage/restore-system-boot-drive-letter

[Gunther]

Vortex,

The registry is storing all the relevant information at :

Code Select Expand

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/backup-and-storage/restore-system-boot-drive-letter

That's good to know. Thanks for the hint.

[daydreamer]

There are exception of usb becomes A: when used as bootable, used my first 128mb for that before
Thanks shintaro
Its Good to use that control on my computers use same drive letters for same drives
, erol 
Zedd mostly use only c: on latest computer, seldom use external dvd
Win10 seem assigned 2tb drive and biggest 128gb usb drive and few smaller to different usb drives to different drive letters, thats why the question if it choose order by size
Also exception is connect tablet to usb
A phone/tablet icon appear with tablets name and you also can get battery percentage
and click on it to access tree containing builtin sd card+ external sd card inserted

[zedd151]

There are exception of usb becomes A: when used as bootable, used my first 128mb for that before...

Really? I'd never seen an external hard drive assigned to A or B. How was the external drive formatted? What formatting tool was used? Are you saying that Windows explorer from OS on C: shows it as drive A:? Or do you mean from whatever tools you were running on the external drive. (OS, repair tools, Linux or whatever...) Sounds odd to me. What file system was used on that external drive? I don't doubt you, just that I'd never seen that case.

[daydreamer]

Zedd
It emulates a start diskette inserted into drive A:, when not used to boot computer it ends up same way as the other external drives E,F,G drive letter
I don't remember what software I used for partition first partition to 2MB and format FAT with start sector and copy start diskette to it
I remember going into bios to enable USB boot

[zedd151]

Hi daydreamer. Thanks for the reply. I have formatted usb drives as bootable for as long as I can remember (and changing BIOS to enable booting), I had never seen one that is assigned A: or B:. Some tools let the user specify the type of drive (removable, fixed, etc.). I wonder if there was a setting to specify as floppy drive? ... odd that

[daydreamer]

I only used on my old amd xp stationary, i followed doc howto make it a start diskette, thats why only 2mb partition, so probably bios let it be A: to emulate disk drive?
Did your bigger usb (driveseveral gb) end up c:, d: drive letter instead
Knoppix possible on usb drive ?
Never tried

[hutch--]

Magnus,

Just learn how to use the Disk Management option in "Control Panel" - Adminstrative Tools. Set any storgae device to any drive letter you like. Just don't mess around with your boot partition.