External hard drive issue

Wicked_Dark

hey guys, I hope someone can share some insight here.

I have an external HD that I want to force a drive assignment to - meaning when I attach it I want it to map as an F drive. It had been doing this fairly automatically whenever I attached it (via USB), but now the OS is assigning it as a G drive and because all my catalogs are set up as F in mapping, I can't work with any of the photos in Lightroom.

Is there a way to force or change the letter assignment somehow??

gecko0

info on doing it in XP:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844


similar steps for Vista/W7...but not sure what you're running to give specifics.

.02

Wicked_Dark

Whoops, sorry...it's a Vista Home machine. A species of HP DV6000. The drive itself (which probably doesn't matter) is a 2TB Western Dig.

Enitsugua

Wicked_Dark wrote:

I have an external HD that I want to force a drive assignment to - meaning when I attach it I want it to map as an F drive. It had been doing this fairly automatically whenever I attached it (via USB), but now the OS is assigning it as a G drive and because all my catalogs are set up as F in mapping, I can't work with any of the photos in Lightroom....

Whoops, sorry...it's a Vista Home machine. A species of HP DV6000. The drive itself (which probably doesn't matter) is a 2TB Western Dig.

It's only going to assign G if you have something else on F (a new drive?). If that's the case, you're going to need to move that new thing to a different drive letter first. You won't be able to assign F to the older drive until you fix that by either unplugging that new drive or assigning the new drive to a different drive letter first. Better would be to avoid this all together by assigning the old drive you are talking about to something else entirely--such as P for photos.

In either case (to make it F once F is available or P as a more permanent solution):

Find MY COMPUTER or COMPUTER
Right click
Choose Manage
Find Disk Management
Right click the drive letter as it is now
Choose Change Drive Letter and Paths
Click the Change button
Pick a new letter and Ok your way out

If you went for something other than F (my recommendation), then you will need to fix this in Lightroom also.

Notice the question mark next to this folder on the Folders section on the left pane?
Right click the folder
Choose Find Missing Folder
Find the folder with the new drive letter
Click Ok

Wicked_Dark

That's just it, F is an option - there are NO other drives attached. it skips F and assigns G automatically. I want to change it or force it to select F like it used to do all the time. But anyway...it looks like your solution will work and I'm going to give it a go. Thanks a ton.

ian408

Did you "eject it" properly? Try disconnecting it the rebooting. Shut the machine down, install the drive and that may solve the problem.

Wicked_Dark

yep, did all that. I always 'safely remove' drives from the laptop and did a hard shut down last night. still came up G with no other drives attached this morning. it's possessed. But I've reassigned the drive so that Lightroom can find its catalog, so I'm ok. Just didn't know where to look to do it.