How to assign drives a permanent letter
If you are having trouble with shortcuts not working or network drives failing to map because drive letter assignments have changed you may be able to resolve the problem by forcing permanent assignment of drive letters. This problem is particularly likely to occur when using a device such as a "Jaz Drive" that must use a drive letter to operate, but the device is sometimes present and is sometimes not present. The problem also sometimes occurs just from installing a new local drive. One solution to these problems is to override the automatic drive letter assignment and permanently assign a drive letter of your choosing. To better understand the solution it helps to understand local drives and drive letter assignment. For more detailed explanation, click here.
**If you have any doubt about whether it is safe to disable a drive or change a drive letter assignment contact Technical Support Operations before proceeding.**
These instructions are for Windows NT4 systems only. If you feel you need to permanently assign a drive letter on a Windows 95 or Windows 2000 system contact Technical Support Operations for assistance.
Assigning a permanent drive letter on an NT machine is easy if the local drive is permanently installed and if you do not have any conflicts with existing drives. For instructions on using Disk Administrator to assign permanent drive letters, click here.
If you are having drive letter conflicts with a removable device you will need to take several steps to resolve the conflict. For a description of those steps select the kind of drive that is affecting drive letter assignments:
CD ROM Drive ( Caution: this should work for other drive types as well but has not been tested)
Permanently assigning your drive letters should prevent them from shifting and keep your shortcuts and network drive mappings working.
Although your drives already have a letter you can assign or reassign the drive letters in Disk Administrator. The difference is how the drive letters are assigned and whether another program can have "permission" to change drive letter assignments. This process can be used to prevent a drive letter from being reassigned unexpectedly.
**If you have any doubt about whether it is safe to disable a drive or change a drive letter assignment contact Technical Support Operations before proceeding.**
Close all open programs.
Select Start menu and select Programs.
Select Administrative Tools (Common) and then click on Disk Administrator.
You may get a message that Disk Administrator has determined that "This is the first time Disk Administrator has been run, or that one or more disks have been added to your computer since Disk Administrator was last run. System configuration will now be updated."
This is normal, Click on OK
You may also get a message to place a signature on disk 0 or disk 1, answer Yes.
Click on the drive you want to assign to highlight it.
From the menu bar select Tools, then Assign Dri ve Letter.
Select Do not assign a drive letter. Click on OK.
You should see a "Confirm" box that says: "This new drive letter assignment will happen immediately. Do you wish to continue?" Select Yes.
It is possible that DiskAdmin will tell you that the drive is in use ("cannot be locked for exclusive use") and that it can change the drive letter on the next reboot. Go ahead and reboot, log back in, and run DiskAdmin again, following the same steps as above.
Go back to the menu bar select Tools, then Assign Dri ve Letter.
Select Assign drive letter. Select the drive letter that you would like it to be and click OK.
You should see a "Confirm" box that says: "This new drive letter assignment will happen immediately. Do you wish to continue?" Select Yes.
It is possible that DiskAdmin will tell you that the drive is in use ("cannot be locked for exclusive use") and that it can change the drive letter on the next reboot. Go ahead and reboot, log back in, and run DiskAdmin again, following the same steps as above.
To exit Disk Administrator. Click on Partition, then select E xit.
This drive letter is now permanently attached to this local drive until you go back into Disk Administrator and change it to something else.
Click here to go back to the beginning of this document.
You will find instructions for permanently assigning a drive letter in the
Media Library in Lotus Notes. The instructions assume that your Jaz drive is already properly installed and thus has an existing drive letter assignment. It also assumes that you are not getting any conflicts with mapping to network drives. If you are getting error messages because the Jaz drive has taken a letter assigned to a mapped network drive (or cannot assign a drive letter because of the network drive) you can resolve the problem and still use the instructions in the Media Library by turning off the Jaz drive to restore your original drive letter assignments and then disconnecting the network drive. For more information on disconnecting a network drive see the document
55059 — How to disconnect a mapping to a network drive
**If you have
any doubt about whether it is safe to disable a drive or change a drive letter assignment contact Technical Support Operations
before proceeding.**
To find the Media Library document describing how to permanently assign drive letters:
Open the Media Library by double clicking on the icon.
Select View from the menu bar.
Select Main Category from the drop down menu.
Scroll until you see the entry Computers and Network, and single click to open it
Select the subcategory Workstation Build and then select Guidelines and Procedures .
Scroll until you see the entry named Toshiba Laptops, NT 4 and External Iomega Jaz Drive and double click to open it.
First read the entire set of instructions, then follow the instructions to assign the drive permanently to a particular drive letter.
When you have completed your procedure your drive letter assignments should remain stable. You will be able to connect or disconnect the Jaz drive without disturbing your other drive letter assignments.
Click here to go back to the beginning of this document.
**If you have
any doubt about whether it is safe to disable a drive or change a drive letter assignment contact Technical Support Operations
before proceeding.**
Close all open programs.
Select Start menu and select Programs.
Select Administrative Tools (Common) and then click on Disk Administrator.
You may get a message that Disk Administrator has determined that "This is the first time Disk Administrator has been run, or that one or more disks have been added to your computer since Disk Administrator was last run. System configuration will now be updated."
This is normal, Click on OK
You may also get a message to place a signature on disk 0 or disk 1, answer Yes.
To make sure you are in the same view as covered in these instructions click on View, then Disk Configuration.
You should see two rows, labeled Disk 0 and Disk 1. Disk 0 will have two drives, probably C: and E:, and Disk 1 will have D:.
Click on drive D: then from the menu bar select Tools, then Assign Dri ve Letter.
Select Do not assign a drive letter. Click on OK.
You should see a "Confirm" box that says: "This new drive letter assignment will happen immediately. Do you wish to continue?" Select Yes.
It is possible that DiskAdmin will tell you that the drive is in use ("cannot be locked for exclusive use") and that it can change the drive letter on the next reboot. Go ahead and reboot, log back in, and run DiskAdmin again, following the same steps as above.
Click on drive E: then from the menu bar select Tools, then Assign Dri ve Letter.
Click on the drop down box next to Assign a drive letter. Select D: then click on OK.
You should see a "Confirm" box that says: "This new drive letter assignment will happen immediately. Do you wish to continue?" Select Yes.
Now go back and click on Disk 1, (the one with no drive letter assignment) then from the menu bar select Tools, then Assign Dri ve Letter.
Click on the drop down box next to Assign a drive letter. Select E: then click on OK.
You should see a "Confirm" box that says: "This new drive letter assignment will happen immediately. Do you wish to continue?" Select Yes.
Exit Disk Administrator. Click on Partition, then select E xit.
Shutdown and reboot your machine.
This drive letter is now permanently attached to this local drive until you go back into Disk Administrator and change it to something else. If you take out the Select Bay hard drive and insert the CD ROM it will use the same drive letter. This is OK.
Note: If you are going to be using both the Select Bay hard drive and the CD ROM regularly by switching them you may choose to assign them different drive letters. For example, you can install the hard drive, follow the above steps and assign that drive the letter "E:" and then switch back to the CD ROM and assign it the letter "F:". Just remember that whichever drive is not present will not show on the list of available drives. Do not map network drives to those letters. Also you are not required to assign them different drive letters, your machine will recognize which device is in the bay.
**If you have
any doubt about whether it is safe to disable a drive or change a drive letter assignment contact Technical Support Operations
before proceeding.**
Summary of the procedure: Disable the problem local drive, make room for it by remapping any network drives as necessary, use Disk Administrator to assign drive letters to each local drive, enable the problem local drive and assign it a drive letter.
Click on any of the list items for more information on completing that procedure.
Disable, disconnect or turn off the drive that is "pushing" the other assigned drives.
Shutdown and restart your NT4 system.
After restart verify that the CD-ROM drive is missing (this is what you want).
Make sure you have room for the new drive. That means that you must have at least one drive letter available between your local drives (hard drive, CD-ROM, floppy, Jaz drive, tape drive etc) and any network drives. If you need to make a drive letter available you will have to disconnect a network drive and assign it to a different letter. If you need help select from the two links below:
Assign drive letters in Disk Administrator to each local drive.
Shutdown and restart your NT4 system.
Run
Windows NT Explorer. Verify that your local drives have the drive letters of your choosing. If they are not try repeating the Disk Administrator instructions in
step 5 above.
The instructions below are the more detailed instructions on every step necessary to properly assign your drive letters. At the end of each major step you will be given the opportunity to return to the summary of steps, or to continue on with the detailed information.
Disable, disconnect or turn off the drive that is "pushing" the other assigned drives.
Here is how to disable the CD-ROM drive:
Close all open programs ( e.g. Word, Excel, Lotus Notes, etc. should all be closed before you begin.)
Select Start menu, then Settings, then Control Panel.
Double-click on the Devices icon to open it.
Scroll down to Cdrom
Click on H W Profiles button.
Click on the Disable button.
Click on OK.
Click on Close to close the Devices menu, close Control Panel.
To return to the instruction list, click here, or continue on to the next step
Shutdown and restart your NT4 system.
After restart verify that the CD-ROM drive is missing (this is what you want).
Make sure you have room for the new drive.
That means that you must have at least one drive letter available between your local drives (hard drive, CD-ROM, floppy, Jaz drive, tape drive etc) and any network drives. That is, if your last local drive is "E:" then your first network drive should be no closer than "G:", leaving "F:" available. If you need to make a drive letter available you will have to disconnect a network drive and assign it to a different letter. Here is how you do that:
Right-click the My Computer icon on your Windows desktop.
Click on Disconnect Network Drive... from the pop-up menu.
Click on the network drive letter you wish to disconnect from the Drive: window. The field contains a scrollable list.
Once you have highlighted the drive you wish to disconnect, click OK.
To return to the instruction list, click here, or continue on to the next step
Map the network drive to a new letter:
Right-click the My Computer icon on your Windows desktop.
Click on Map Network Drive... from the pop-up menu.
Select an used letter for the Drive: from the drop-down list box (don't forget to leave that "gap" of one drive letter after the last of your local drives).
You can use the scroll in the Shared Directories box list to select the Path: name and double-click on the directory you wish to map. Alternatively, you can type the information directly in the Path: field. Don't forget to insert two backslashes before the network server name and one backslash before the directory name. For example: \\psh-common-02\peoplenet32.
Click the box next to Reconnect at Logon so that this drive will be available to you in future sessions when you are logged onto the network, then click on the OK button.
To return to the instruction list, click here, or continue on to the next step
Assign drive letters in Disk Administrator to each local drive.
Select Start menu and select Programs
Select Administrative Tools (Common), then click on Disk Administrator.
You may get a message that Disk Administrator has determined that "This is the first time Disk Administrator has been run, or that one or more disks have been added to your computer since Disk Administrator was last run. System configuration will now be updated."
This is normal, Click on OK
You may also get a message to place a signature on disk 0 or disk 1, answer Yes.
Click on the drive you want to define to highlight it.
From the menu bar select Tools, then Assign Dri ve Letter.
Change the drive letter to any unused drive letter and click OK. This changes the drive assignment from the "default." It may not be strictly speaking necessary but it helps ensure that the registry recognizes the permanent assignment on the next step.
Now select the drive letter that you would like to use and click OK.
This drive letter is now permanently attached to this local drive until you go back into Disk Administrator and change it to something else.
Repeat for each local drive.
To exit Disk Administrator. Click on Partition, then select E xit.
To return to the instruction list, click here, or continue on to the next step
Select Start menu, then Settings, then Control Panel.
Double-click on the Devices icon to open it.
Scroll down to Cdrom.
Click on the H W Profiles button
Click on the Enable button.
Click on OK
Click on Close to close the Devices menu, then close Control Panel.
To return to the instruction list, click here, or continue on to the next step
Shutdown and restart your NT4 system.
Run
Windows NT Explorer. Verify that your local drives have the drive letters of your choosing. If they are not try repeating the Disk Administrator instructions in
step 5 above.
Your drive letters should now be permanently assigned and not change when you add or remove your external device.
Click here to go back to the beginning of this document.
There are basically two types of local drives, (1) those that are permanently installed (typically your hard drive and CD-ROM) and will usually be present and (2) those that are removable and may or may not be present at any particular computing session (typically Jaz drives, tape drives, and floppy or CD-ROM drives connected to the machine by cables). When you install either type of drive, a drive letter must be assigned to make the device available. In most cases the drive letter will be assigned automatically. The installation process may select drive letter already being used by another drive. For example, it may assign itself the letter "D" and bump your "D" (usually a hard disk partition) and "E" (usually your CD ROM) reassigning them to letters "E" and "F" respectively. This can cause problems if you have shortcuts pointing to those drives or if those drives are mapped to a network drive.
Here are the typical problems that can be resolved by assigning drive letters through NT Disk Administrator.
(1) Installing new drive causes error messages about failure to connect to network drive
(2) Installing new drive causes illogical drive letter assignment
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(1) Installing new drive causes error messages about failure to connect to network drive
Let's say you install a new permanent CD-ROM where none existed before and it assigns itself the drive letter "E". If "E" was mapped to a network drive with the "reconnect" at login box checked you will get an error message every time you log in. This is because the local drive will be assigned to "E" but the system has been instructed to attempt to map that same drive letter to the network. Since local drives have precedence over network drives the system will be unable to complete the connection and will generate an error message.
Before installing a new local drive you should have at least one drive letter available between your local drives (hard drive, CD-ROM, floppy, Jaz drive, tape drive etc) and any network drives. That is, if your last local drive is "E:" then your first network drive should be no closer than "G:", leaving "F:" available. To eliminate the error message you must first restore the original drive assignments by disabling the new drive, disconnect the network drive, then re-enable the new drive. For specific instructions go back to the solutions section, click here.
Click here to go back to the list of typical problems.
Click here to go back to the beginning of this document.
(2) Installing new drive causes illogical drive letter assignment
Let's say you want to partition your C: drive into a C: and D:, but D: is already assigned to your CD ROM. You could end up with the new partition being assigned to E:. A similar situation can occur when you install a "Select Bay" hard drive. The install program may make the new hard drive D: and bump your original D: partition to E: If that doesn't seem logical to you then you can reassign the drive letters before installing the new drive. For those instructions Click here.
Click here to go back to the list of typical problems.
Click here to go back to the beginning of this document.
When you install a Jaz drive or other removable local drive (hard drive, CD-ROM, floppy, tape drive etc) on your laptop it should be automatically assigned a drive letter. When you activate or enable the device it may select drive letter already being used by another drive. For example, it may assign itself the letter "D" and bump your "D" (usually a hard disk partition) and "E" (usually your CD ROM) reassigning them to letters "E" and "F" respectively. If you had any shortcuts pointing to files on a "bumped" drive they will no longer work because they are pointing to the wrong drive. The removable drive may also be unable to assign itself a drive letter because there is no available drive letter after the last local drive (e.g. if your CD-ROM is "E:" and your first network drive is "F:" there will be no room for the Jaz drive.
The big problem comes when you remove, turn off, or otherwise deactivate the device. Because the device is not there to "occupy" the drive letter, the original drive letter assignments may be restored. That means you can not solve the problem by rewriting the shortcuts. Why? Let's say that before you installed the drive you had a shortcut pointing to a program on your CD-ROM drive and that drive is designated "E:" The shortcut will, therefore, be pointing to the "E:" drive. If you now install the new removable drive and it bumps your the CD-ROM to drive "F:" the shortcut no longer works. So you re-write the shortcut to point to "F:" Everything is fine, until the day you don't turn on or connect that removable drive. On that day the CD-ROM once again becomes "E:" and the shortcut pointing to "F:" won't work Arrrgh!
To eliminate the problem you must first restore the original drive assignments by disconnecting or turning off the Jaz drive and assign each permanent local drive a drive letter using "Disk Administrator". Make sure there is an available drive letter after the last local drive. Now when you reconnect the Jaz drive it will take the next available letter at the end of your other local drives. If you do this you can connect and disconnect that removable drive and all your permanent local drives will remain stable. Note: you must leave an unassigned drive letter between the last of your local drives and the first of any mapped network drives or you will get error messages. To specific instructions on this solution go back to the solutions section, click here.
Click here to go back to the list of typical problems.
Click here to go back to the beginning of this document.
Created by the PeopleSoft Knowledge Management Team.
Copyright © 1998
All rights reserved.
Created: db 02/12/1999