I love my ExtHD (External Hard Drive), but when I turn it off and back on, it always starts a new drive letter. This is trouble for making shortcuts and programs remembering the location of the last file I opened. Anyone know a way that I can permanently assign a letter to this drive?

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Hi again gunbound,
Windows "assigns" drive letters to all drives at startup/bootup time. Are you just turning off your external hard drive ONLY?... then turning it back on??
If so .. then windows "should" recognize the drive again with the same drive letter as before. If it doesn't.. then .. this is either a Windows OS file issue (may require a re-install of OS ( ) or a HD "driver" problem which requires a install of the latest driver from the HD manufacturer.
If your talking about the external HD gets a new letter each time Windows OS is re-started (& your external HD is already connected) then this is definately a Windows OS issue.
Hope this helps
RGPHNX

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I don't really see why it would assign a new drive letter. If it recongnizes the device it seems to me that it would stay the same. I recommend going to the manufactuor's site or the windows site.

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1 thing that I think might be affecting it is, if you have more than 1 external hard drive then you put a them on in a different order than the time before than it will give them different letter names. Not sure how well I explained it or if this is the case either.

Here's an example:
you put your first external drive on then say it gives it the letter f:/, then you put the second 1 in and it will give it g:/. Next time you'll put the drives on in a different orderso they'll get different letter names. If that is what's happening then I recommend putting them in in the same order everytime.

Hope that helps and that it made sense. If that doesn't solve it then I have no clue what to do.

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it's normal! being as external hard drive.
but find with google about such a commander application.. e.g. tray or total commander.. those can command like fix the location and auto pathing..

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No, maybe I didn't explain myself well enough...

My computer is on the whole time. If I turn off my Ext HD, and later turn it back on, it will not have the same letter. For example, right now the letter has reached K:. If I turn it off now and turn it back on, it will then have letter L:

I just installed WinXP Pro, but it was the same thing before I formatted my computer (internal HD). So I really don't think that it has anything to do with a problem with the OS.

**** 5 minutes later ****

Ah ha! Lol, how simple. Turns out that all I had to do was give the drive a NAME. Right-click the drive from My Computer and select Properties. I gave it a name and now it keeps the same letter instead of being assigned a new letter each time it's used. Apparently, without a name, Windows doesn't remember if it's the same device every time it's used and gives it a new drive letter.

Thanks for trying anyways!

 

 

 

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Awwe crap! No, I guess I was wrong about that. Same thing again... so strange.

I made a new post for it, which better addresses the situation.

http://www.trap17.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=21175

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