WinXP won't give drive letter to USB/IDE drive

[Doug1029]

Hi,

Just joined to renew a TechSpot thread I found while googling a problem I'm having with a notebook HD that I've repackaged in a USB enclosure and am trying to access from a desktop. Both running WinXP (see my profile). Well, the notebook *did* run WinXP but will no longer stay up long enough to boot (long story). The URL for the earlier thread on this topic is

https://www.techspot.com/vb/printthread.php?t=8213

Thanks for any help.

Doug

 

[Masque]

Do you have a drive mapped as e: drive? If so, unmap it....I've found this happens fairly frequently.

 

[Doug1029]

Having trouble posting a reply, so I'll keep this simple. Thanks for your response. I have E: and F: assigned to a DVDROM and CDROM. Won't Windows just assign the next available letter (K: in my case)?

 

[RealBlackStuff]

USB does not recognize virtual or mapped drives.
It will try the next free letter after it found all hardware drives, but if that next free letter (G/H/I/J in your case?) is a virtual/mapped drive, it comes into conflict, and conks out.
Solution: like Masque said, unmap GHIJ and move them up to e.g. PQRS.
Then USB will find the (now free) next hardware letter G.