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Resolved What is cause of connected HD's changing reference letter.

Discussion in 'Windows 10' started by BobbyScot, 2018/12/18.

  1. 2018/12/18
    BobbyScot

    BobbyScot Geek Member Thread Starter

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    Recently find my HD's and USB sticks continually change their original allocated reference letter with the exception of the C drive. I find this troublesome, especially when making a computer backup. Backup program displays original allocated drive reference letter, however this letter now refers to another HD. Can this anomaly be corrected?
     
    BobbyScot,
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  2. 2018/12/18
    Bill

    Bill SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    It is not an anomaly so it cannot be corrected. USB sticks are intended for temporary use. So it is common for their drive letters to change. But such shifts can be avoided by using fixed drives.
     
    Bill,
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  4. 2018/12/18
    BobbyScot

    BobbyScot Geek Member Thread Starter

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    Bill thank you for response, noted. The HD used solely for backups is an external HD and as what you say, be best left connected with computer, My reason at the moment is to disconnect it completely as a caution against the prospects of being hacked.
     
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  5. 2018/12/18
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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    Disconnect your USB drive, then reconnect it. Then use Disk Management to manually assign it the drive letter X, Y or Z. If you manually change the drive letter Windows will always use that letter for the drive because it will associate the letter with the device ID.

    Windows by default will use the "next available letter (unused)" in the alphabet. Using X, Y or Z for a USB external drive will never have its letter changed if you manually assign that letter.
     
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  6. 2018/12/18
    frayedknotarts Lifetime Subscription

    frayedknotarts Well-Known Member

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    Good one, Tony! Yea, from the depths of memory I remember this when playing about with 60MB WD drives in external enclosures in WIN 98 days. Forgot all about it, glad to have it back!

    Garcias (whoever HE was)
     
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  7. 2018/12/19
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    Yea, I use manually assigned drive letters for my USB drives, and they never get changed ;)
     
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  8. 2018/12/19
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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    Also works for thumb drives. Several times I wrote backup scripts for clients which auto-copied data to a thumb drive.
     
    TonyT,
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  9. 2018/12/19
    BobbyScot

    BobbyScot Geek Member Thread Starter

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    It has been ages since I changed an HD reference letter, so much so I required help on doing this procedure. I do remember doing this, did not prevent MS change the HD letter to another letter without changes from me. However, it applied when using Windows 7, this could be different with Windows 10.
     
    BobbyScot,
    #8
  10. 2018/12/19
    retiredlearner

    retiredlearner SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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