[ # ] Keep USB Drives in Order on Windows

/* Posted April 1st, 2008 at 9:45am */
/* Filed under Microsoft, Windows */

Mess of USB Devices
Ever plug in a 21-in-1 USB flash card reader with a couple of USB external hard drives and USB drives? I do. And when I do, I get a whole mess of random drive letter assignments. My USB flash card reader alone gives me four drives, and the hard drives add another two. Add the fact that I have internal hard drives and two optical drives and the letter assignment starts from H: on Windows. I mean H:??? Who can remember anything past E:??? Well I got fed up and found this awesome hack to always map each USB drive to a particular folder regardless of what order I plugged it in. This hack requires no external software and can be done completely through Windows.

Windows Disk Management

What you do is right click on “My Computer” on your desktop and select “Manage.” Alternatively you could simply type “diskmgmt.msc” in “Run.” Go to the “Disk Management” service under “Storage” on the left bar and you will see all the hard drives, optical drives, and USB drives connected. Find the USB drive you want to map and right click on it, then select “Change Drive Letter and Paths.” In this dialog, you can “Add…” and simply point it to a directory you’ve already created. From now on, whenever you connect this USB device, regardless of the Windows drive letter assignment, you can be sure that the folder you mapped will always point to the USB device.