Set next drive letter

[MrBeatnik]

Hi folks! First post

 

I have a tricky one.

We have all sorts of PCs with different hardware.

One type of PC has the flash-type combo slots (xD, SD, etc). All in all, it assigns 5 drive letters.

No problem - we can deal with them and assign them letters at sysprep etc.

 

The problem comes when a user then inserts a regular USB stick.

The drive letter it is assigned is drive I:, where we would prefer this to go to drive E:.

We have networked drives in F,G and H.

 

 

Is there anyway to set the "next available drive letter" as E:?

Bear in mind that I don't want to run a ascript when the user plugs in his device, and there is no device plugged in at sysyprep etc, so I cannot CHANGE the drive letter, I just want to PRE-DEFINE it!

 

Is this possible at all??

I'm not entirely sure why the device is not setting to E:, but every time on these PCs it want's to go to I:. It seems like there is something somewhere that says this is the next letter to use...

[dyoung5]

We use a program called USBDLM (USB Drive Letter Manager). Do a search for it on the forums.

 

We allocate 3 letters for use by USB keys and 4 for each card reader. It can also do amazing stuff, like not assigning letters to card readers until you insert a card, and more.

 

Its an MSI with the config in an ini file, so really easy to deploy through AD.

 

Regards,

 

David

[MrBeatnik]

Thanks David,

 

I am aware of this utility and it may well be the solution that we need to go with, but I was really curious if there was a way to get windows to set the first drive letter to use when any device is inserted next without having to use a running service or script when device is inserted.

 

>> I suppose another way of looking at it is WHY is drive I: being assigned instead of E:?

What is saying "Use drive I:", and how do I change that specific rule?

 

 

This service basically takes action to re-map to a specific drive when the pen is inserted. That's all fine, but it's another service on the desktop. As usual though, MS probably doesn't have a way to set this and a third party tool (or own script) may be the only way...

 

Thanks for your input though!

[elsiegee40]

Another vote for USBDLM here. It is so simple. I agree that the way drive letters are allocated seems unfathomable, but this extra service seems to carry little, if any, performance payload and solves an annoying problem in an instant.

[MrBeatnik]

Drive letters are such an archaic oddity.

That's the truth!