adding/enabling new drive letters 1

[bigpygme]

I cannot figure out how to add and enable new drive letters in XP Pro, though i have stumbled across it in the past and USED to know how. Some things (thumb drives) aren't registering when i plug them into a USB card, that is a PCI add-on card wirh 4 USB ports, and i am wondering if i need to manually enable those extra drives for XP to find and use them.
I know XP is supposed to do that on its own, but it's not so i was thinking a little nudge from me might help.

Any comments on that are appreciated - thanks much.

Michael

 

[vacunita]

All drive letters are enabled and available for usage by default. No User intervention needed.

It sounds to me like either the PCI add-on card is not working properly or the thumb drive have a problem.

What happens when you plug them in? Does Windows even kow they are there? Do the appear in Disk Management even if they don't get a letter? Can you assign a drive letter to them form there?


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Phil AKA Vacunita
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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[BadBigBen]

if everything (the USB PCI card and the USB drive) works, then it could be that you do not have enough FREE drive letters free...

and in that case you will have to free some drive letters in that you assign used ones to folders or eliminate unused ones...

this is done under the Drive Management, as Vacunita mentioned...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[bigpygme]

thank you both for posting. simply re-seating the PCI card and re-starting the computer seem to have taken care of the problem.

but what i was getting at was BigBadBen's remark about having "enough FREE drive letters free". in the past i have stumbled across a checklist of drive letters A to Z, with checkmarks next to a few of them, indicating whether they're anabled or not. i can't access that list in Drive Mngmnt - and i am unclear about the "Add" function in Disk Mngmnt, whether that adds an open drive as enabled and available.

I know XP is supposed to take care of Drive assignemnts itself and automatically, and it has, so in that sense i am resolved ... still just curious, about manually enabling some drive letters, though.

like, if i need to change a drive assignment: i may need a "blank" unassigned drive to change it to while i shuffle things. That make sense?

Thanks again,

Michael

"Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance."
--Sam Brown

 

[vacunita]

I believe tweakui from Microsoft's Power Toys has an option to enable or disable a drive letter which if disabled just meas it can't be assigned to a device that may request it.

Usually Mapped Drives will have priority for driver letters over USB and as such will prevent the USB drive to get the letter to wants.

It is then you can go to Drive Management and right click on the USB drive and select change Drive letter and paths to assign it a drive letter different to that of the mapped drive.

Other than that there's nothing else you should need to do.


----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[bigpygme]

ahh, TweakUI - ok, that's probably it, i'll look there. Thanks for hanging with me during the post.

Michael

"Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance."
--Sam Brown