Import drive letters for use after reinstall?

Donk · Feb 7, 2024

After a new installation, is there a way to automatically assign all external hard drives the drive letters they had in the old installation? So that you don't have to manually assign the old letters to each external drive after connecting it again?

fixer · Feb 7, 2024

It isn't possible to just retrieve old drive letters after a reinstall, Windows will allocate new drive letters, but you can change them afterwards using Change Drive Letters and Paths in Disk Management.

Donk · Feb 7, 2024

Yes yes, that's exactly what I want to avoid.

andrew129260 · Feb 7, 2024

Donk said:
Yes yes, that's exactly what I want to avoid.

Can I ask why does it matter? If it is the matter of telling which one is which, you can name the drive. Under drive properties label.

Donk · Feb 7, 2024

Well well, it would be more convenient than manually renaming the labels of each drive, assign a drive letter for each one, etc. with every new installation or another computer, etc.

Why would one copy a piece of text to another file instead of typing it manually in the other file? Or why would one import / export settings?

andrew129260 · Feb 7, 2024

You shouldnt need to redo the labels of each drive unless your wiping every drive when doing the windows install. The data on them should stay intact as well as the label names. Only the drive letters might change.

Donk · Feb 7, 2024

OK, but that has never been the case here.

So your drive letters and labels are kept on other computers, new installations?

andrew129260 · Feb 7, 2024

Just like my flash drives, yes. Labels should stay, just not drive letters. As long as I dont wipe them or touch them with the windows installer.

You could also try disconnecting the drives when installing windows. to ensure its not touching them

Donk · Feb 7, 2024

Just like my flash drives, yes.

And so all other external drives. What might be different with you that makes it work than it does here?

Labels not drive letters.

Excuse me, what's the connection? What should I take from this?

andrew129260 · Feb 7, 2024

The AB Fix it is the label, the D: is the drive letter. Labels should stay the same.

For example, If I have a second internal drive named (labeled) games and reinstall windows, the drive letter might change but the data stays intact and so does the label.

Donk · Feb 7, 2024

The AB Fix it is the label, the D: is the drive letter

Yes, OK, sorry, I am not sure what the means. Just generally an explanation of the difference between drive letter and label? Or is there another connection?

andrew129260 · Feb 7, 2024

The image I provided is a screenshot. Go to file explorer and click on "this pc." Right click a drive and select properties.

There you can see my screenshot to reference inputting a label.

Try3 · Feb 7, 2024

Donk said:
an explanation of the difference between drive letter and label

If you post a screenshot of your File explorer showing all your disks then your own disks can be used as example of drive letters & labels.
That might be more helpful for you.

Why do you assign specific disk/drive letters to lots of disks?
Windows installation assigns the drive letter C:\ to the drive with my OS in it. I assign D:\ to my second drive. That's all I bother with. I let the others use whatever Windows wants at any given time.

Denis

Berton · Feb 7, 2024

The main 'take-away' I'd add is to install Windows on the only Internal drive in the computer, all others disconnected until after Windows is up and running, will prevent some of the booting issues that have been seen on forums with two or more drives connected. Unless RAID is being used.

For External drives, If they are reconnected in the same order and same ports there may be no issue. And with Disk Management open one can connect a drive and do a Refresh or Rescan to get the list updated. The only thing Disk Management won't show is NAS drives connected to the Router.

Donk · Feb 7, 2024

The image I provided is a screenshot. Go to file explorer and click on "this pc." Right click a drive and select properties.

There you can see my screenshot to reference inputting a label.

Okey, thank you very much!

Why do you assign specific disk/drive letters to lots of disks?

Because I want to identify them, its content.

Okey, so it seems I had to assign the letters manually.

Alright, thank you very much!

fixer · Feb 7, 2024

Donk said:
Because I want to identify them, its content.

Better to use names. Then you can forget about drive letters

Try3 · Feb 7, 2024

If you give them each drive labels then they remain constant over time & with different computers.
I have an external drive called TxTools that has had that name for about five years in all the seven/eight computers I have had over that period. I don't care what its drive letter is.
[Saying "calling" them "names" or giving them "labels" means the same thing.]

Denis

Donk · Feb 7, 2024

Okey, thank you very much!

OAT · Feb 7, 2024

Try3 said:
If you give them each drive labels then they remain constant over time & with different computers.
I have an external drive called TxTools that has had that name for about five years in all the seven/eight computers I have had over that period. I don't care what its drive letter is.
[Saying "calling" them "names" or giving them "labels" means the same thing.]

Denis

You can't have applications use the name of the volume to recognize drives. That just won't do.
What about batch scripts, config files? Drive labels won't work. Labels are useful to the user but mean nothing to the OS.
Many applications in Windows, unlike Linux-GNU, require fully qualified paths (including a drive letter) to run.
Therefore the drive letter must match the assigned path.

Try3 · Feb 7, 2024

The OP did not ask about any of that.
You can have batch scripts recognise a volume label and use that to find out the drive's current drive letter for the rest of the script to use. I run such scripts almost every day.
GetDriveLetter-SubRoutine - my post #5 - ElevenForum

Denis

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