drive numbers changing

hello everyone

I have two external drives connected to my laptop, one is a `G` drive and the other is a`H` drive. The problem that i have is when i plug in my e-reader which comes on as an `F` drive it seems to change the letters of the external drives
which means i have to keep changing them back to their original letters.
how can i stop this happening.

regards calmat

When you plug in external devices, there is the consideration of the sequential order in which they are initially attached. For instance, if I have two USB drives where one appears as G and the other H, if I later reboot and install the one that previously showed as H, it may show as G.
Also, if I have 3 USB drives and always use them one at a time, they may each appear as "F" every time I use them.

However, I did an experiment where I had the Disk Management dialog (under Computer Management-->Storage) open when I attached two USB drives. In the interface, I manually selected two different drive letters for those USB drives. One mapped as "H" and the other as "I" (by default they were "F" and "G"). I ejected the drives, then plugged in the one I had designated as "I". Sure enough, it showed up as "I", not "F" as I would have expected since "F" would be the next logical drive letter.

I suggest plugging in all three of your devices, then explicitly selecting drive letters for them in the Disk Management. Hopefully by doing this, the computer will remember each device with the previously designated drive letter and avoid any unexpected reassignments.

hello cytherian

thanks for your help, i will try that

regards calmat

You're welcome, calmat. I'm glad to help you. Let us know how it works out.

hello cytherian

i tried what you suggested, but the drives still keep changing.

calmat

Well, that's really strange. Vista doesn't seem to be persisting the drive reference for unique devices installed on your system. How about trying a drive letter for the E-Reader as something at least a few letters distant from the external hard drives? Perhaps something like "Z" or "X".

Do you have a USB drive handy? If so, try doing what I suggested without involving the E-Reader. If it works, then you'll know that it's the E-Reader driver that is somehow forcing a specific drive letter. If that is the case, I'd contact the support staff for the device to see if they can help.

hell cytherian

i will try your suggestions, thanks very much for your help.

regards calmat

^ You're welcome, calmat. There's always an answer to a problem, but often in the world of computers it's an elusive one. Hopefully you're getting close.