USB drives keep changing

wadda · Jul 28, 2010

My flash drives and external hard drives keep changing letters. Now when I go to look a file that should be on the flash drive the files are empty. Is there anyway I can stop this and retrieve my files?

Thank you,

hrlow2 · Jul 28, 2010

That happens to my thumb drives after I remove them and later reinsert them into a different slot.
Are you doing that or is yours plugged in full time?

wadda · Jul 29, 2010

I don't pay attention to what usb I put each one in and sometimes I do leave them in all the time. I have an external hard drive that was F: it is always plugged into the computer now it comes up as I: Do you have any idea what I am doing wrong?

Thank you,

Wadda

plodr · Jul 29, 2010

Do you have any idea what I am doing wrong?
Click to expand...

Every time you plug and unplug a USB device, its letter can change. If you want the external to always have the same letter. go into Admin Tools (in Control Panel), then Computer Management and Disk Management. Assign a specific letter to the external, and keep it plugged into the same port. My external is assigned S. I keep it plugged into the same USB port and when I choose to power it up, it comes up as S.
If you plug in some stick drives they will use the letters not assigned to the hd and optical drives. Let's say your had is C and your optical drives are D and E. The first stick plugged in, gets the letter F. The next stick, letter G and so on.

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USB drives keep changing

wadda Specialist

hrlow2 MajorGeek

wadda Specialist

plodr MajorGeek Super Extraordinaire Moderator Staff Member