Re: Removable disk allocated same letter as network drive!

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

From: Gary Chanson (gchanson_at_No.Spam.TheWorld.net)
Date: 04/14/04 

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 13:24:20 -0400

<news@rtrussell.co.uk> wrote in message
news:c5jbmi$l2v$1@nntp0.reith.bbc.co.uk...
> I'm having a problem with removable disks on a Windows XP Home
> system. On this system C: is the hard disk, D: is a DVD-ROM and
> E: is a network drive. Whenever I insert a removable disk (e.g.
> a USB Flash drive, or the card reader on an HP Photosmart printer)
> it gets allocated the same letter (E:) as the network drive!
>
> The consequence is that although Control Panel's Disk Management
> sees E: as the removable disk (this is how I found out what was
> happening) Windows Explorer and all normal file accesses still
> see E: as the network drive. The contents of the removable disk
> are not accessible.
>
> I have 'solved' the problem by mapping the network drive to a
> later letter (N:) but presumably this should not be necessary.
> What can I do to persuade Windows XP that E: is already in use ?

    It should find the first available drive letter but possibly at some
previous time E: was available and it's simply reusing the assignment.

    You can change the drive letter assigned to the USB device using the
disk manager (in computer management). 

-- 
-GJC [MS Windows SDK MVP]
-Software Consultant (Embedded systems and Real Time Controls)
- http://www.mvps.org/ArcaneIncantations/consulting.htm
-gchanson@mvps.org

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