USB drives and mapped drive letter conflicts

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Guest

In Windows XP, I always had problems with clients who wanted to use USB
drives in a corporate environment where drives are mapped via scripts to low
drive letters. USB drives always took the next available PHYSICAL drive
letter, even if it was already in use by a mapped drive. You have to manually
go into Drive Management and change the drive letter to get the USB drive to
show up. After that, it will remember the drive letter, but there were no end
to the complaints about the process.

It appears this "problem" still exists in Windows Vista. It was in Beta 2,
and I just loaded up the July CTP hoping it was fixed. I mapped a network
share to E: (my next available drive letter), plugged in a USB drive...AND
THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED!

I can't believe this issue still exists in Vista. I really hope this is just
a fluke in this build, and the issue has been resolved in non-public betas.
It seems such a simple issue for the hardware to check what drive letters are
actually available, or if mapped drives exists, to pop a prompt asking what
drive letter you want.

PLEASE look into this issue, as it does cause a lot of trouble in the
corporate world where drives are usually not mapped from Z: backwards, but
from F: on up.

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http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/co...crosoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices
 
Truly sorry for the multiple postings....the system kept telling me the post
did not go through, so I kept trying....apparently it lied.
 
Are you absolutely sure this is a universal
Windows problem?

I have never encountered it. My wife uses a USB
flash drive frequently at work, on a network
with mapped drives, and she doesn't encounter
this problem. I personally used a USB hard
drive on a networked computer with mapped drives
 
Happens on every single Windows XP computer I've used. The problem only comes
to light if the NEXT available drive letter is mapped. In my test scenario I
just ran through, C: is a hard drive, D: is a DVD, and I mapped E: to ensure
the problem would happen. It my first mapped drive was F:, G: or higher, the
problem would not come to light. Once the scenario is set up, I plug in a USB
drive that the system has not seen before, and it attempts to assign it to
the next available physical drive letter...in my case, E:, which is already
mapped. I cannot get access to the drive until I go into Disk Management and
change the drive letter associated with the USB drive.

From that point on, it won't be an issue, as XP remembers the associated
drive letter, so the problem does not reoccur. See if you can set up this
scenario to make it happen, as it does happen on all 6 computers in my office
(just tested in XP). If it isn't univeral, I'd sure like to figure out what
is going on!
 
It's a very common problem. The solution is to map network drives starting
at Z: and work down. This has been the best practice and recommended for a
long time. Unfortunately many admins still use drive mappings to lower
letters.
 
Regardless of "best practice", we still shouldn't have to do something
manually that the OS should take care of automatically. Most of the corporate
environments I consult in map from A toward Z, and this continues to be an
issue into the 5472 build of Vista.
 
Happy to report back on my own post...THIS IS FIXED!

Build 5536 fixes this issue. Now, USB drives, and I assume any removeable
media, finds the next "available" drive letter, avoiding mapped drives.

Thank you Microsoft for fixing this headache!
 
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