Windows 10: Is there a way to designate a fixed drive letter to an external disk I frequesntly detatch...

Hi Gurus,


I have invested in a portable SSD drive which I use for backups. I plugg it in and when the backup is done I remove it again. I could off course have the drive attached att all times but as an increase in security I would like to remove it to keep the backup safe. This works great except that when I attached the drive it gets different drive letters each time. In the backup software I use, the drive letters are saved so every time I do a backup I have to check which drive letter that was assigned and then manually change destination drive in the backupsoftware.


Is there a way to fix a designated drive letter to an external drive that I frequestly attach and deattach?

Thank you for your time


Regards,

/Magnus

:)

 

help. USB drive isn't assigned a drive letter.

Any usb flash drive I plug into my computer isn't assigned a drive letter. The physical drive shows in the "safely remove hardware" but it doesnt show up in disk management. I have tried to populate the volume thru the safely remove hardware properties window and it does pop up in the list but it doesn't stay there. This isn't a format or assign a letter problem. It's more complicated then that. Maybe one of the services needed for usb drive management was disabled? Suggestions needed. btw external usb harddrives work fine.

 

External disk drive not showing up

Check if the drive is assigned a drive letter.

Press Windows key + X

Click Disk Management

If you see your drive listed there, but no drive letter, right click it

Click Change Drive Letter and Paths

Click Add

Click Assign the following drive letter

Click in the Drive letter list box

Choose a drive letter - try choosing letters near the end of the alphabet

Click OK

Click OK again

If that does not work...

Press Windows key + X

Click Device Manager

Expand Disk drives

Right click the external drive

Click uninstall

Exit Device Manager, restart then check if its detected.

or

Step 1. Press Windows key + R to open the Run dialog

Step 2. Type regedit and press Enter

Step 3. Navigate to the following path:

HKEY_LOCAL_Machine > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Services > USB

Step 4. If the USB key does not exist into the list, then create a new key USB under Services. Now create a new DWORD value under the key that you’ve just created

Step 5. Keep the USB key selected and right-click on the blank space at the right pane

Step 6. Select New > DWORD value from the context menu

Step 7.Rename this newly created DWORD value as DisableSelectiveSuspend

Step 8. Right-click on DisableSelectiveSuspend and select Modify

Step 9. Put 1 in Value data field and then click OK

Step 10. Reboot your PC

 

WD external drive letter change

Hi @WilliamSlessor!

I'm sorry to hear about the confusion with the external drive. What I would suggest is to go in Disk Management and try to reassign the letters on both drives with a third one, and then go back to the original letters. For instance - change the G:G: drive to
M:, and then reassign it as G: again.

You can follow the steps described in this KB article:

http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=T1tsut

Hope this helps and let us know how it went.