Allocation of drive letters for USB devices

[Worldlife]

My W98SE desktop is very stable (well at least in this respect). It seems to reserve drive letters for various USB devices whether or not they are plugged in.

The laptop with XP Home has the following USB devices attached but some of course require switching on at the mains when needed:-

Scanner
External DVD writer
External Hard Drive
256 MB Flash Drive
Photoprinter

The USB Flash Drive is used more frequently than the other devices.

Would Windows XP have decided itself to change the designating drive letter of a device? This has happened on my system and it has caused difficulties because links to files and programs have now been changed.

Is there a way of cementing the drive letter designations so this does not happen again?

[StuC]

I think if you manually alocate a drive letter is should retain that letter when the drive is reattached. I only use 2000 and it seems pretty good at doing that.

I have two external USB drives that I like to keep as the same letter when attached, that has foxed it in the past.

One thing I have found that some USB items like to be plugged back in to the same port they were last attached.

[Ian]

With the usb key thingy inserted , right click on My Computer, choose Manage, Storage, Disk Management, the usb key thingy should be listed in the bottom right hand pane, right Click on it and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths... then assign the drive letter you want.

This seemed to work fine when I just tried it, you can assign different letter to different devices and windows remembers the letter after removal (and it doesnt seem to need to be in the same usb socket either, which is nice )

[gem]

Ian's suggestion also works with non usb's too as I've assigned drive d for my removable (caddy) backup hd.

[Worldlife]

Thanks folks.... will follow these suggestions when I've finished a current project where my jury rigged system is just about coping.

[Worldlife]

New video editing job coming up and I will need to reinstall and upgrade all the software.

Note that "A" and "B" drives are normally reserved for floppy disc. I have no floppy disc on my laptop but the 256MB flash drive will prevent normal start up as it is not a boot disc.

If I force the flash drive to be "A" and my external hard drive to be "B" will this ensure greater protection against XP Home deciding to reallocate letters?

Both these devices are not in constant use.

Do you see any problems using "A" and "B" letter allocations in this way?

[Worldlife]

Burning the early morning oil.

Reallocated correct original USB drive names after auto jumble up by XP home )

Completed new video capture from camcorder using program on portable USB Drive and capture saved OK and first stage edit completed.

Even although USB Flash Drive is treated as a boot disc (there is no floppy on the laptop) XP did not seem to like it renamed "A".

Time will tell if restarting computer without all USB devices connected will cause any changes to designated drive letters.

Thanks again for input and advice...........