USB Drive mounts to different letter

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Scenario: I am using five different USB drives for daily backups in a production environment. Each day, the receptionist plugs in the day specific drive and ViceVersa Pro pulls data from all production workstations and backs them up on that drive. At the end of the day she removes the drive and takes it home. The next day she repeats with the second drive.

Environment: Windows 7 Pro 32 bit on an Intel based PC with a single boot drive at C:, a DVD at D:, a multi slot card reader at I:, J:, K, and a floppy at A:

Problem: ViceVersa Pro must have the USB drive mounted to H: to function. However, most days the drives mounts randomly to either E: or F:, depending on the status of the multi card reader, permanently attached to the machine. Each day I have to go to Control PanelAdministrative ToolsComputer ManagementStorageDisk Management to rename the drive so it will run the backup.

Attempted Solutions:

1. I reassigned the letters from the multi slot card reader to higher letters than the USB drive in hopes it would not “Steal” the H: letter. These drive letter changes have stuck, eliminating the first part of the problem with the USB Drives. (Before this change, when the computer was rebooted in the morning, H: would be assigned to a non-existant, unattached drive. I would have to use Disk Management to delete the ghost drive, then change the letter for the USB Drive.)

2. I have manually reassigned the drive letter for each USB drive multiple times. The problem persists.

3. I installed a utility as a service called usbdlm.msi, aka “Drive Letter Manager”. I set the .ini for usbdlm file to assign I, J, K to the card reader and H: to the USB Drives. When the USB drive finally mounts to H:, it flashes it’s dialogue box as it should, but doesn’t seem to help with remembering the letter assignment.

4. I have tried using the “Safely Remove” and the “Fast Removal Settings” for the hard drives. It did not effect the problem.

Requested Help: I need to find a way for each of the five USB drives to automatically mount to H: (or another fixed drive letter) without manually changing it each day. I think the receptionist is going to lose her salvation if it continues much longer :-).

Thanks in advance.

Bob

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Windows marks each disk so it remembers what and where. Having 5 different disks all attempting to mount as H: is just asking too much.
Stick with drive letter manager or write a batch file and script to use Diskpart to fix the drive letters each time.

cheers, Paul

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Bob,

This Windows Service for managing USB drives looks interesting. I haven’t used it but have downloaded it to try out. I’ll report back when I have tested it.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
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Not long ago I read about SyncToy 2.1 and it’s ability to adjust disk backup pathnames dynamically. I think thats what you need with 5 different drives. Then instead of VersaPro tap tap tapping away the day waiting for a drive on H, it recognizes the backup on E or F and…done.

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Bob,

I tested out the service I linked in my previous post and it works great. Just download it and carefully read the installation instructions in the .chm file {read the .txt file first}.

I set it up to always load the first USB drive at U: the next one at Y: since I use X: for my network drive and decided to save V: for a future virtual drive.

I plugged and unplugged two different Cruiser USB keys {used the safely remove hardware feature here!} and a WD-USB hard drive and all were assigned to U: Then I plugged in 2 USB keys and the 1st one was U: and the 2nd W.

It gives you a nice popup to tell you what letters were assigned {see attached pics}.

This software can be configured to be very specific about what drive letters are assigned but requires you read the configuration information very carefully and fully. I just used a modified version of the sample .ini file and it works like a charm and should meet your needs.

Note: This software is free for personal use but does require a license {after 30 day trial} for commercial use. $13.90 per license for 1-9 licenses.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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