prepare a drive and assign C: partition.

[Laszlo Lebrun]

Hi group,
how can I prepare a partition on a drive connected via USB to get letter C:?
That letter is not available at preparation time.

??
Laszlo

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Hi group,
how can I prepare a partition on a drive connected via USB to get letter C:?
That letter is not available at preparation time.

??
Laszlo

Since C: is usually the boot drive, that letter wouldn't ever be
available to another drive. Two different drives can't have the same
letter...

If you know that and if C: isn't used and should be available, then all
you have to do is assign the drive letter the usual way. It will remain
unchanged in future as long as no other drive gets that letter in the
interim.

Here's one usual way:

Right click Computer, choose Manage, then select Disk Management in the
left pane (you might have to click the little triangle next to Storage
to see that).

Right click the drive in the right side of the window and choose
"Change Drive Letter and Paths...".

I must say that when I assign drive letters, I try not to choose
letters with well-established prior meanings.

 

[Ed Cryer]

Since C: is usually the boot drive, that letter wouldn't ever be
available to another drive. Two different drives can't have the same
letter...

If you know that and if C: isn't used and should be available, then all
you have to do is assign the drive letter the usual way. It will remain
unchanged in future as long as no other drive gets that letter in the
interim.

Here's one usual way:

Right click Computer, choose Manage, then select Disk Management in the
left pane (you might have to click the little triangle next to Storage
to see that).

Right click the drive in the right side of the window and choose "Change
Drive Letter and Paths...".

I must say that when I assign drive letters, I try not to choose letters
with well-established prior meanings.

If we're talking about inside Windows, then the drive letters are merely
relational to Windows; they're not written to the disk itself.
So you can do the following, which I've often done.
1. Plug in a USB external disk, and have it assigned a letter by Win7.
That might be H.
2. Clone the system C disk to it.
3. Take that disk and replace the original cloned one.
4. Boot. And it will have been assigned C.

Ed

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

If we're talking about inside Windows, then the drive letters are merely
relational to Windows; they're not written to the disk itself.
So you can do the following, which I've often done.
1. Plug in a USB external disk, and have it assigned a letter by Win7. That
might be H.
2. Clone the system C disk to it.
3. Take that disk and replace the original cloned one.
4. Boot. And it will have been assigned C.

Ed

That's not what I think the OP meant, but who knows?

What I think the OP meant is what I (think I) wrote about, and here's a
concrete example to clarify:

Let's say I plug in a drive, and Windows calls it drive F:. Now I
generate a backup script using Macrium.

Later I run that script, and Macrium expects (requires) the drive to be
drive F:. OK, except that today I happened to have plugged in a USB
stick, and the BU drive is now G:, so the backup task aborts - and
letter F: is not available to fix it. Unless I unplug the USB stick,
but if I happen to be running the script overnight while I sleep, this
option is not really viable...PITA.

Here's how I deal with that. When I first plug in the drive (or later,
after the above failure) I assign a high letter to the drive, such as
X:, and recreate the backup script.

Next time I plug the drive in, Windows remembers the X: and Macrium
finds the drive. No more problems, unless I assign X: to a second
device - but I'm not that dumb.