Force Windows to assign a drive letter to a portable device

[sonofsanta]

This is driving me mad, particularly because it seems to be one of those instances where the computer is trying to be helpful and just being a PITA instead.

 

My daughter managed to lose a bunch of voice recordings off her MP3 player. I want to run some file recovery software against it, but Windows (XP and 7) just call it by its device name - i.e. Computer\Samsung YP-U3\Samsung Flash Media - instead of giving it a drive letter.

 

I've tried forcing Device Manager to use USBSTOR.SYS but it's not having it, and there's nothing in the menu of the MP3 player, tiny feeble thing that it is.

 

Anyone know a way of forcing Windows to stop being "helpful" or any recovery software that will work with MTP mode?

[6Foot2]

Have you had a look at Drive Letter Manager?

 

Link: USB Drive Letter Manager - USBDLM

 

We use it to control which drive letters are assigned to USB devices when plugged into a station. Could help here?

[sonofsanta]

Alas, without Windows assigning a drive letter in the first place, USBDLM is unable to get its claws in and achieve anything

 

If I could force the device from MTP mode into MSC mode it would be fine, but I can't seem to manhandle Windows into installing the Mass Storage driver.

[ZeroHour]

I take it Computer Management->Disk Management cant assign a letter to the partition?

[sonofsanta]

I take it Computer Management->Disk Management cant assign a letter to the partition?

 

Nope - because it's being added as an MTP device, it shows up under Device Manager as a Portable Device, not Storage, so it doesn't appear in Disk Management at all

 

Half tempted to try it in Linux at this point. Just a lot of faff for something I thought would be very simple :/

[X-13]

Anyone know a way of forcing Windows to stop being "helpful" or any recovery software that will work with MTP mode?

 

Try disabling WPD in group policy.

 

Administrative Templates -> System -> Removable Storage Access.

 

Enable "WPD Devices: Deny Read Access" and "WDP Devices Deny Write Access"

Edited December 13, 2012 by X-13

[Arthur]

there's nothing in the menu of the MP3 player

Unless you can switch the MP3 player into mass storage mode, I don't think you're going to have much luck.

 

By design, MTP devices (like PTP devices) are not treated as a traditional removable drive. The actual file system is implemented by the device, not by the computer's operating system. In theory the operating system may hide this difference, but this is not the case on Windows or Mac OS. This also means that conventional file system recovery tools will be of no use if the drive is corrupted, or crashes. (Source)

[gjdb]

Maybe you could try cfadisk driver: http://www.etcwiki.org/dl/USB_LocalDisk.zip

[WTFBBQ]

Check this thread - U3 UMS Firmware - Samsung U Series / F3 - abi>>forums

 

Seems the firmware will need to be updated / downgraded to get it to be recognised as a Mass Storage device. Later revisions prevented it.

 

EDIT: This is not for your device, but similar results may exist. It seems to be endemic to Samsung products.

Edited December 20, 2012 by WTFBBQ