Quick guide: Assign permanent letter on removable storage or disk drive

assign permanent letter to removable drive
Assign permanent drive letter on removable disk drive made quick and easy by using Disk Management app on Windows 10

Disk management. Yes, it is. I am set for serious disk management task on this episode as I look forward to maximize efficiency while doing my video authoring projects. Part of this is the simple task of assigning permanent drive letter to each and every removable and storage disk drive I plug into my PC.

The number of drives I’m using has increased through the years. I have four of my drives, an old IOMEGA 232 GB, One Touch 600 GB by Maxtor, an Easystore 4 terabytes by Western Digital and My Passport 2 terabytes also by Western Digital. By the way, I am doing this as more removable drives are coming which will be featured in several unboxing episodes soon.

So I will tackle the task and dive into assigning permanent DRIVE LETTER to each removable disk drive which I can use on any and all across my computers.

I’m exploring removable disk drives currently online in the Windows system. Formatting the drive is not the right approach as it will erase saved data. That is why I have to be very careful at clicking on the options as displayed by Windows Explorer. Naming or renaming the drive is not needed as already it has been identified by the system. WINDOWS EXPLORER detects and reads the drives and its contents, the system encounters no problem accessing any and all information on the drives. And I’m happy with that.

As I close the current window we should be right back to the desktop.

The best tool for this task in Windows 10 is its DISK MANAGEMENT program. Search for the app using the search box since I can’t find it in the start menu nor in the Windows Administrative Tools. For me, this is the easy and quickest way to open that program.

Disk management displays all the hard drives currently available and attached or online to the Windows system.

The app read the drives including the C drive and its partitions, then displays the information which include the assigned temporary DRIVE LETTERS of removable drives, the capacity, and percentage of free space available for use, etc.

As earlier said, I’m not renaming the drives but assigning a permanent drive letter. So here we go.

Point the mouse and LEFT click to select the drive or just positon the mouse on the temprary drive letter assigned by the system.

RIGHT click to reveal a drop down menu.

Scroll down to OPTION 4 CHANGE DRIVE LETTER AND PATHS and either RIGHT OR LEFT CLICK which has the same result.

Point down the mouse on SECOND BUTTON for CHANGE and LEFT click. Pop-up window CHANGE DRIVE LETTER OR PATH opens up. Accept pre-selected choice OPTION of ASSIGN THE FOLLOWING LETTER.

On the RIGHT side drop-down scrollable list LEFT click to reveal all suggested LISTING FOR DRIVE LETTERS. Hover mouse and sellect desired letter.

Left click on the letter selected.

Select below the OK option and LEFT click.

A cautionary reminder pops-up SOME PROGRAM THAT RELY ON DRIVE LETTERS MIGHT NOT RUN CORRECTLY. DO YOU WANT TO CONTINUE?

Then LEFT click the BUTTON YES to effect or activate the assignment.

So I will go ahead with the assignment of permanent disk drive letter to all removable drives.

The advantage of this is that if I’m working on my laptop and working on video authoring and the files are located on one drive, the program will look for that drive. The video program memorizes the location of video files on the temporary disk drives including the assigned temporary drive letter. But if Windows assigns temporary DRIVE LETTER each time I plug in the drive, no way the video program can locate the files. It is because the first temporary drive letter plugged into the system get the first availblee temporary drive letter assignment, and so on.

I have assigned specific permanent drive letter on each removable drive across my systems. So that my removable drive with permenant DRIVE LETTER “I” as an example, will be ID’D by any and all of the computers as DRIVE I since I have replicated the process on my other PCs. Even if I have unplugged DRIVE “I” and leaving other drives attached, the next time I re-attach the removable drive, it will be read as DRIVE “I” by my system.

That’s all for this guide and tip on the assignment of permanent drive letter to removable disk drive.

Update: Answer to the question “Why so many removable hard drives when main PC has tons of gigabytes of free space?”

Good question. Saving video files, on-going projects, completed projects, music, documents, etc. on separate and dedicated removable hard drives (not on my documents on main drive C) is a good insurance I can have the file when needed. Also, I do not have to worry about computer crashes and related incident. I had my share of ‘accident’ when can not retrieve the file confronted with a non-responsive system.

Since then, I maintain back-ups and duplicates as necessary. So that, my on-going projects and its raw video files are stored in a (one) removable hard drive. Once project is completed, all related files are deleted. But the original raw video file is stored in another removable hard drive. Completed video projects are also stored in a separate removable hard drive.

The convenience of this setup is that I can work on a laptop then continue working on my desktop on the same project using only the same removable drive dedicated for raw video projects and related files. (Yes, I have installed in all my computers the video authoring program.)

This setup help keep my Windows system of clutter of documents and files.

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