When I plug a USB stick in any USB port the laptop allocates the next available letter to this drive - "E" - this applies to any USB stick I normally use.
EXCEPT for one particular USB stcik which always shows up as "G" even though "E" and "F" are available.
What's happening here and can I solve it?
Hello carrotmuseum,
When you connect a USB to the PC, its hardware ID is referenced to the assigned drive letter for it. This way when you connect it again next time, it'll have the same drive letter.
If you like, you can use an option in the tutorial below to change the drive letter to what you like instead.
Drive Letter - Add, Change, or Remove in Windows - Windows 7 Help blog
Hi there is a trick which may be used to ensure a particular USB drive is always allocated the same drive letter when it is plugged in. This is very useful, for example, if you use it as your backup medium, and the backup software 'script' expects it to be present with a particular drive letter. (E.g. Aomei Backupper).
Here's how to assign a fixed drive letter: (albeit shown in Win 7).
How to Assign a Static Drive Letter to a USB Drive in Windows 7
Disk manager, right click on the memory stick drive, and change drive letter.
It'll remember letters from previous times it's plugged in, so if you've had a phone or camera plugged in at the same time then it'll assign it G, and from then on, that device id will get assigned G.
I've found that if you plug something in and assign a drive letter that's high in the list, such as X: or Y: then it keeps that letter for that device as that letter doesn't get overwritten by other devices.
Are you really sure, that this should always allocated the same drive letter? I can't confirm this using two external USB drives, plugged in randomly. They get various letters even if I manually set them to a "fixed" letter U:
Hi, in that case perhaps you haven't used the trick yet as outlined above:
Launch Disk Management (Windows key + R, type diskmgmt.msc), right click on the external drive, and change the drive letter e.g. to S.
Next time you plug that device in it will be assigned S.
@dalchina: Unfortunately this seems not to work in my case. What argument exactly will be used to detect the "same" external USB drive? The label? The serial number? Something else?
Hi, that's unfortunate - have you tried a couple of different devices and assigned drive letters not used?@dalchina: Unfortunately this seems not to work in my case. What argument exactly will be used to detect the "same" external USB drive? The label? The serial number? Something else?
Your question is answered in Brink's #2 I think.
There is a freeware program that does this - updated for Win 10- I used it many years ago, tho' you may find it less convenient than the method using Disk Management.
Download USB Drive Letter Manager (USBDLM) - MajorGeeks
