I'm using XP.
I have 4 external drives. They now show as the following in File
Explorer.
(E:)
G (F:)
E (G:)
(H:)
They used to be a simple, E:, F:, G: and H:
How do I get my original labels back?
I think this had something to do with using USB sticks at times.
mel <mel@no-mail.com> wrote:
I'm using XP.
Which service pack? The tool I mention below requires Windows XP SP-3, because there some fixes or changes in SP3 for handling removable
drives.
I have 4 external drives. They now show as the following in File
Explorer.
(E:)
G (F:)
E (G:)
(H:)
They used to be a simple, E:, F:, G: and H:
How do I get my original labels back?
I think this had something to do with using USB sticks at times.
When inserting a USB drive, the first available letter gets assigned.
There is no guarantee that the same USB drive gets assigned the same
drive letter it had before. The moment you remove/unmount a drive, its
drive letter becomes a candidate to assign to a different drive.
Internal drives (HDDs, SSDs), those on the mobo ports, can get the same
drive letters, because they are considered permanent drives. Removable drives are considered temporary drives. It would be ridiculous to permanently assign (reserve) a drive letter to a device that may appear
once and never return to that host. Wouldn't take long to use up the
entire alphabet of drive letters to reserve them for temporary drives.
Windows tracks drives by their volume serial number (VSN) that is
assigns to a drive when it formats it. Both permanent and removable
drives get a VSN when Windows formats [a partition on] them. Permanent (internal) drives get permanent drive letter assignments (until you
change them). Temporary (removable) drives get whatever is the first available drive letter from those that are free.
https://www.lifewire.com/volume-serial-number-2626046
You can use Speccy, the "vol [drive:]" command, or other tools to see
the VSN assigned to a drive.
Go into Disk Manager (diskmgmt.msc) to assign the drive letters. You
cannot assign a drive letter that is already assigned. You will need to
free up drive letters beforehand to repurpose a drive letter for use
with a different drive. There are lots of tools to manage the drive
letters, like 3rd-party partition managers.
You could use diskpart from a command shell (that has elevated
privileges) to change drive letter assignments, but that has a higher learning curve than using a GUI tool, like Disk Manager bundled in
Windows.
https://www.diskpart.com/diskpart/assign-drive-letter-4125.html
You can try to use USBDLM (USB Drive Letter Manager) from UWE-sweiber in
an attempt to reserve drive letters for removable devices:
https://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html
On Fri, 6 Aug 2021 21:55:08 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:
mel <mel@no-mail.com> wrote:
I'm using XP.
Which service pack? The tool I mention below requires Windows XP SP-3,
because there some fixes or changes in SP3 for handling removable
drives.
I have 4 external drives. They now show as the following in File
Explorer.
(E:)
G (F:)
E (G:)
(H:)
They used to be a simple, E:, F:, G: and H:
How do I get my original labels back?
I think this had something to do with using USB sticks at times.
When inserting a USB drive, the first available letter gets assigned.
There is no guarantee that the same USB drive gets assigned the same
drive letter it had before. The moment you remove/unmount a drive, its
drive letter becomes a candidate to assign to a different drive.
Internal drives (HDDs, SSDs), those on the mobo ports, can get the same
drive letters, because they are considered permanent drives. Removable
drives are considered temporary drives. It would be ridiculous to
permanently assign (reserve) a drive letter to a device that may appear
once and never return to that host. Wouldn't take long to use up the
entire alphabet of drive letters to reserve them for temporary drives.
Windows tracks drives by their volume serial number (VSN) that is
assigns to a drive when it formats it. Both permanent and removable
drives get a VSN when Windows formats [a partition on] them. Permanent
(internal) drives get permanent drive letter assignments (until you
change them). Temporary (removable) drives get whatever is the first
available drive letter from those that are free.
https://www.lifewire.com/volume-serial-number-2626046
You can use Speccy, the "vol [drive:]" command, or other tools to see
the VSN assigned to a drive.
Go into Disk Manager (diskmgmt.msc) to assign the drive letters. You
cannot assign a drive letter that is already assigned. You will need to
free up drive letters beforehand to repurpose a drive letter for use
with a different drive. There are lots of tools to manage the drive
letters, like 3rd-party partition managers.
You could use diskpart from a command shell (that has elevated
privileges) to change drive letter assignments, but that has a higher
learning curve than using a GUI tool, like Disk Manager bundled in
Windows.
https://www.diskpart.com/diskpart/assign-drive-letter-4125.html
You can try to use USBDLM (USB Drive Letter Manager) from UWE-sweiber in
an attempt to reserve drive letters for removable devices:
https://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html
Thanks for that lengthy explanation. I don't mean to sound ungrateful
but all that is a bit beyond me. I'm just going to live with the names
I have. Thanks again for replying.
"mel" <mel@no-mail.com> wrote
| > Thanks for that lengthy explanation. I don't mean to sound ungrateful
| > but all that is a bit beyond me. I'm just going to live with the names
| > I have. Thanks again for replying.
|
With Vanguard you always end up getting documentation
of his mental digressions and explanations of the best ways
not to accomplish things. Also, command line has come back
into fashion as an atmospheric, retro hobby. So no one ever
tells you to do something like copy a file via drag-drop anymore.
Instead it's 10 steps of DOS in a command window. Sort of
like installing a clutch pedal in your car for old times sake.
What he's trying to say is go
into Administrative Tools (Start Menu or Control Panel) ->
Computer Management -> Disk Management, then right-click
the drive and change the letter. Free up that letter first, if
necessary.
But, have you tried just unplugging the sticks and then
plugging them back in, in the preferred order?
What he's trying to say is go
into Administrative Tools (Start Menu or Control Panel) ->
Computer Management -> Disk Management, then right-click
the drive and change the letter. Free up that letter first, if
necessary.
But, have you tried just unplugging the sticks and then
plugging them back in, in the preferred order?
I tried something simple. I changed the diak letters inside File
Explorer. I now have the following. (E:), F:(F:), G:(G:) and (H:)
At least now the drive names are labeled properly - even though two of
them have double letters.
The KISS Principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid)worked again - partly. :o)
With Vanguard you always end up getting documentation
of his mental digressions and explanations of the best ways
not to accomplish things. Also, command line has come back
into fashion as an atmospheric, retro hobby. So no one ever
tells you to do something like copy a file via drag-drop anymore.
Instead it's 10 steps of DOS in a command window. Sort of
like installing a clutch pedal in your car for old times sake.
What he's trying to say is go
into Administrative Tools (Start Menu or Control Panel) ->
Computer Management -> Disk Management, then right-click
the drive and change the letter. Free up that letter first, if
necessary.
But, have you tried just unplugging the sticks and then
plugging them back in, in the preferred order?
The issue is that external drive will "hold" a note as to which drive
they were last assigned. If it last was assigned G: then unless G: is
already assigned, it will be G: regardless of which order.
On Fri, 6 Aug 2021 at 23:02:26, mel <mel@no-mail.com> wrote (my
responses usually follow points raised):
[]
I tried something simple. I changed the diak letters inside File
Explorer. I now have the following. (E:), F:(F:), G:(G:) and (H:)
At least now the drive names are labeled properly - even though two of
them have double letters.
The KISS Principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid)worked again - partly. :o)
Some of those might be names: I have
(C:) system
(D:) data
(E:) backup
(J:) data [actually a SUBSTed part of D: (copy of my website)]
(W:) DVD RW Drive
To change the names, right-click on them and select Properties; the name field will be highlighted, and you can change it there (accepting the you-need-to-be-administrator-to-do-this prompt). I've just tried, and to
my surprise yes, you _can_ have a colon (:) in a partition/drive name. Right-click then Rename, or even just F2, will also let you rename.
Changing the name is _not_ the same as changing the letter; I can't
remember where you do that, but other posters have said.
I'd suggest _not_ using names of the form <letter><colon>, as you can
confuse yourself, as you may have (albeit unintentionally) here. My
names above aren't bad. (Some people use "Windows" instead of "system".)
I've always used W: for the writer (and in systems with two optical
drives, R: for the reader).
There's a setting somewhere that determines whether the letter (shown in brackets) is shown before or after the name.
(Above apply to Windows 7 with Classic Shell, but it's much the same in
other versions of Windows.)
Mayayana <mayayana@invalid.nospam> wrote:
With Vanguard you always end up getting documentation
of his mental digressions and explanations of the best ways
not to accomplish things. Also, command line has come back
into fashion as an atmospheric, retro hobby. So no one ever
tells you to do something like copy a file via drag-drop anymore.
Instead it's 10 steps of DOS in a command window. Sort of
like installing a clutch pedal in your car for old times sake.
What he's trying to say is go
into Administrative Tools (Start Menu or Control Panel) ->
Computer Management -> Disk Management, then right-click
the drive and change the letter. Free up that letter first, if
necessary.
But, have you tried just unplugging the sticks and then
plugging them back in, in the preferred order?
I said to go directly into Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc). You have the
OP wander through 2 extra levels of MMC to get to the same place. You
repeat my suggestion that the drive letter must get released first to repurpose it to another drive.
In Disk Management it now shows my F: drive as F:(F:). When I try to
rename it in Change Drive Letter and Paths, the box of choice shows F
by itself, but when I click OK the result is still the double letter
name F:(F:).
Mayayana <mayayana@invalid.nospam> wrote:deleted
"VanguardLH" <V@nguard.LH> wrote in
instead of the file that will have to either be searched for
in system32 or called via console window. Welcome to
post-1995. :)
You don't have to search for diskmgmt.msc. Welcome to today. The OP
even found another way.
"VanguardLH" <V@nguard.LH> wrote in
| I said to go directly into Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc). You have the
| OP wander through 2 extra levels of MMC to get to the same place.
I'm describing the GUI method that 99% of people use,
instead of the file that will have to either be searched for
in system32 or called via console window. Welcome to
post-1995. :)
pyotr filipivich <phamp@mindspring.com> wrote:
The issue is that external drive will "hold" a note as to which drive
they were last assigned. If it last was assigned G: then unless G: is
already assigned, it will be G: regardless of which order.
Oh, really? The /drive/ holds some data identifying its last drive
letter assignment despite that drive could be used or was initialed with
an OS that doesn't use drive letters? Nope, the drive doesn't record
what it had previously for a drive letter assignment under Windows. The >enumeration data in the Windows registry tracks that.
For drive letters (existing since the dawn of MS/IBM-DOS hence the name
of the DosDevices data item's name), the drive letter assignments are
tracked under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices. The DosDevices
data item's value points back to the unique ID under the Enum key. For >example, I have a USB drive that is plugged in that gets O: (oh colon)
for its drive letter assignment. The DosDevices data item for
\DosDevices\O: points to the Enum\USBstore\<vendorID> key. When you
plug in a USB device, there is handshaking to deliver presentation data
from the device to the OS. That presentation is recorded as the VID
(Vendor ID) for the device.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/storage/supporting-mount-manager-requests-in-a-storage-class-driver
If you ever have a USB device that malfunctions when you plug it in,
could be the enumeration data for it has been corrupted or became
invalid. The presentation data under the VID doesn't change when you
eject and reinject the USB drive. You have to delete its enumeration
data to get the handshaking upon injection to get the USB device defined >anew.
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