Controlling the Drive Letter (DL) associated with USB connected Disk devices

[robroy6]

PC: Dell 4600i, XP pro SP3, six USB connected disks.
When I boot up I examine the DL associated with my disks. There is usually one disk which needs to have it's DL changed because some of my shortcuts/programs require a specific DL to run. Usually F: must be changed to G:. Sometimes another disk has the wrong letter assigned by the Disk Manager Service (DMS). e.g M: must be changed to E:.
I can do this, but it's a hassle.
Is there a way to have the DMS always assign a specific DL to a specific drive on reboot?
In addition, if I move a drive to a different USB port the letters get changed on reboot by the DMS.

 

[robroy6]

I found USBDLM which is supposed to control all features of USB drives. In reading their documentation I get very confused. It's an elaborate and complicated program with hundreds of options.
Does anyone have experience with using USBDLM sucessfully?
Thanks

 

[goombawaho]

Usually, if you INITIALLY set removable USB devices when they are installed (memory sticks, external hard drives) as a higher drive letter (S,T,U,V,X) they will not interfere later with more common drive letters A-G which are more often used for local drive mappings.

 

[robroy6]

Thanks. But I have the problem of some shortcuts/programs/dlls calling a specific drive letter and when windows assigns a different letter to that drive, my calling shortcut/program doesn't run.
I try to keep C: with about 50% free space so I have the habit of downloading free or purchased s/w and moving it from my C: drive to an external drive with lots of room before I actuate the s/w. This results in s/w looking for drive E: (for example) to do some work. I have literally hundreds of such programs, some years old. I do not want windows changing the drive letters for my external drives!!

I did reread the USBDLM documentation and think I have a solution. If it works and you are interested I will reply with the result.

 

[robroy6]

I am using USBDLM with success to control the drive letters of my HDDs. I am running 12 HDDs for 14 partitions and only needed to assign drive letters for 3 or 4 of them.