after connecting my external hard drive to a usb port. assigns to a used drive F. to get to the ext hd i have to disconnect F then i'm able to open the ext hd. how can i get the ext. hd to go to the next available drive letter or can i assign one?

ScottGem

It should not be assigning it to an existing drive letter. What is Drive F? You should be able to go into the properties of the drive and specify the drive letter. I have mine using the letter Q.

blueiman

drive F is an internal drive. always been there. when i plug in the usb. it only goes to drive F. and does not go to an open Letter. do you know how i can fix this?

ScottGem

The following is from Windows Help, which I found by looking up drive letter:

1. Open Computer Management (Local).

1. In the console tree, click Disk Management.
2. Where?

1. Computer Management (Local)

• Storage
• Disk Management

1. Right-click a partition, logical drive, or volume, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.

1. Do one of the following:
2. To assign a drive letter, click Add, click the drive letter you want to use, and then click OK.

• To modify a drive letter, click it, click Change, click the drive letter you want to use, and then click OK.
• To remove a drive letter, click it, and then click Remove.

Important

• Be careful when making drive-letter assignments because many MS-DOS and Windows programs make references to a specific drive letter. For example, the path environment variable shows specific drive letters in conjunction with program names.

Notes

• To open Computer Management, click Start, and then click Control Panel. Double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management.
• You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings might also prevent you from completing this procedure.
• A computer can use up to 26 drive letters. Drive letters A and B are reserved for floppy disk drives, but you can assign these letters to removable drives if the computer does not have a floppy disk drive. Hard disk drives in the computer receive letters C through Z, while mapped network drives are assigned drive letters in reverse order (Z through B).
• You cannot change the drive letter of the system volume or boot volume.
• An error message may appear when you attempt to assign a letter to a volume, CD-ROM drive, or other removable media device, possibly because it is in use by a program in the system. If this happens, close the program accessing the volume or drive, and then click the Change Drive Letter and Paths command again.
• Windows 2000 and Windows XP allow the static assignment of drive letters on volumes, partitions, and CD-ROM drives. This means that you permanently assign a drive letter to a specific partition, volume, or CD-ROM drive. When you add a new hard disk to an existing computer system, it will not affect statically assigned drive letters.
• You can also mount a local drive at an empty folder on an NTFS volume using a drive path instead of a drive letter. For more information, click Related Topics.

blueiman

thanks scott will go thru the info you provided later and see if i can fix. thanks again

bigben64

Scott

This solution helps. I have drive A:, C:, DDVD) and E: (2nd local hard drive) and drive F: is the server on all the machines in our network. The E: drive is new and now every time that I connect a USB device to this machine it assigns it F: and I have to go into computer management and manually change the letter... Should I change the letter of new hard drive or is there a way to make the USB devices go to the next letter?

Thanks.

dillwala

What I have to do ........ ?
my computer cannot connect anymore extern harddisk.
help me please ...

ScottGem

I would set the mapping for the network drive to a higher letter.