Drive assignment problem

AirCooledHeaven

Got a strange problem with drive assignments on my win XP PC.

I have one hard disk (drive C), a CD ROM drive (drive D), and a DVD ROM drive (drive E). So when I plug in a USB memory stick or external drive it shows as drive F. So far so good.

I just bought a new phone and plugged it in to a USB port, the phone asked me if I wanted it to be seen by the PC as a storage device, I clicked on that and the phone memory card appeared as drive F. Again, expected behaviour.

After disconnecting the phone I plugged in a memory stick, it appeared as drive G. Rebooted the PC, it still appears as drive G. Plugged in the phone, it's drive F. So what's going on? It appears my new phone has reserved drive F on the PC for itself. Even when it's not plugged in.

Any ideas? Thanks

googler

It'll depend on your OS, but previous versions of Windows have allowed the reservation of a certain drive letter for certain devices.

If you want to keep the directory path to files on that device constant, you would do this - otherwise apps which kept a record of the path - Word, Excel when opening up saved docs - would lose track of where the files were.

It seems that by clicking Yes on the dialog where you tagged it as a storage device, you've triggered reservation of the drive letter for this device.

RussJK

Just to add to what Santer said - you could have a look using Nirsoft's USBDeview:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

It'll let you change the assigned drive letter.

You may have to change settings on the phone specific software on the PC though, if it's pointing at the originally assigned drive letter.

Hammyman

Does it really matter what letter it shows up as?