Some USB drives seem to change their assigned drive letters
USB external hard drive letters seem to randomly change.
When removing or connecting external USB drives to a Windows system a common problem can occur where some USB drive letters appear to change from what they were in a previous configuration.
Likely Reason
What can occur is similar to the problem Windows gives us with mapped drive assignments where applications that run as Administrator (like Double Image) require that removable drives be assigned there drive letters while 'Disk Management' is being Run as administrator.
'Disk Management' inherits Run as administrator from 'Computer Management' being Run as administrator.
Solution
- Click Administrative Tools >right mouse>Computer Management(Run as administrator) >Disk Management
- ...and repeat next steps for the external USB drives:
- Locate device >Remove drive letter
- Reboot
Click Administrative Tools >right mouse>Computer Management(Run as administrator) >Disk Management ...and repeat next steps for the external USB drives:
- assign drive letter to a USB device
After applying the new drive letters, while Run as administrator, now the USB drives should retain their assigned letter and be recognized by any application that is also Run as administrator.
Note, 'Double Image' runs at startup as privileged (requiring administrator rights)