Speaking of U3 Flash drives ...

[Josef508]

Speaking of Flash drives .. has anyone worked with teh U3 models?
I picked one up that and it wants to be 2 drives, one read only and the other read/write.  the default position is to be drives E & F on a XP machine.  My problem is that my devices are C: (HD),  D: (CD/DVD) E: (empty) F: (Floppy), G:,H: different format Flash connectors (direct for camera and built into teh Floppy drive unit), then I: & J: (HD # 2, & 3). 

So the device see the first open drive .. E:, but the F: is taken, does anyone know how to convince this silly thing (Windows XP) to use K: & L:, rather than E: & F: ???

ADV-thanks-ANCE

[yotta]

i know this sounds stupid, but change the floppy drive mount letter?

[AndyM]

Or plug something else in first, like a cheap USB drive, to use up E:, and then your U3 will take the next two available, K: and L:, which are suitably adjacent.

[darkgarage]

If you change the mount letter within Disk Management it should stick to that drive when it is plugged into that machine.

The quick way to get into the Disk Management is to Right-click on My Computer then select Manage.  Once the window comes up, you should see Disk Management listed on the left-hand side.

Once you are in Disk Management, you should see a listing of all drives that the system is seeing.  You can then right-click on the drive in question and change the Drive-Letter.

Pretty easy, no?

Hope this helps.

[darkgarage]

One thing that I did not mention, that I feel I should.  Be careful. . . . DO NOT change the drive letter on your OS drive (Windows should prevent you from doing so, but lets not tempt fate :-P )

[mwb1100]

Plug in the USB drive then open the Disk Management utility (Control Panel\Administrative ToolsComputer Management\Storage\Disk Management).  The disks used by the USB device should be in bottom right window.  For each of the disks Right Click on it and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths...".

There have been times where the option to change the drive letter has been grayed out for me (I don't know why), but the bigger problem is that if you plug the device into a different USB port, Windows usually sees it as a new device and selects the drive letters however it sees fit, which makes the above settings pretty useless to me (but maybe still OK for you depending on how you use it).

Another option that I have not tried but sounds promising is Uwe Sieber's USB Drive Letter Manager which is free for private and educational use: (http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html)

If you try it out, let us know how it works.

[Josef508]

i know this sounds stupid, but change the floppy drive mount letter?

-yotta (February 26, 2008, 03:29 PM)

I'll need to do some research to accomplish this, but thanks

[Josef508]

Or plug something else in first, like a cheap USB drive, to use up E:, and then your U3 will take the next two available, K: and L:, which are suitably adjacent.

-AndyM (February 26, 2008, 04:11 PM)

WOW do I feel like a ___ Thanks I'll try your suggestion first.

[Josef508]

Thank you all I've got enought information to be good and dangerous now!
I'll let y'all know how the remapping effort goes too.

Thanks again!

[tomos]

i know this sounds stupid, but change the floppy drive mount letter?

-yotta (February 26, 2008, 03:29 PM)

I'll need to do some research to accomplish this, but thanks

-Josef508 (February 26, 2008, 08:29 PM)

follow mwb's and/or darkgarage's directions for that also
Floppy is traditionally A seems like a good place to keep it maybe? course you could change it to Z if you want it down the end of the list..whatever

[Deozaan]

Speaking of Flash drives .. has anyone worked with teh U3 models?
I picked one up that and it wants to be 2 drives, one read only and the other read/write.  the default position is to be drives E & F on a XP machine.  My problem is that my devices are C: (HD),  D: (CD/DVD) E: (empty) F: (Floppy), G:,H: different format Flash connectors (direct for camera and built into teh Floppy drive unit), then I: & J: (HD # 2, & 3). 

So the device see the first open drive .. E:, but the F: is taken, does anyone know how to convince this silly thing (Windows XP) to use K: & L:, rather than E: & F: ???

ADV-thanks-ANCE

-Josef508 (February 26, 2008, 03:03 PM)

I don't really see what the problem is. If it takes up two drive letters, and chooses E: but F: is taken, won't it just find the next available drive letter for the second partition? According to your description, that sounds like it would take up E: and K:

Am I wrong about that?

I believe the Read Only drive is the actual U3 files that launch when you plug it in. It's Read Only so you don't delete that crap off the drive. Also I read somewhere that you can hold Shift when you insert the U3 drive to disable U3 functionality. I'm not sure if that will help, but it would be easier to test than going into Disk Management and changing thing around.

[Daleus]

I second the recommendation to use USB Drive LEtter Manager.

This is a very tiny service that let's you reserve or restrict drive letters for any USB device.  Quite a brilliant product in my mind, and one that I am deploying on all the computers that I use.

[yotta]

and me , i didnt think of another usb