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I have 2 identical SATA-2 drives I use for backup purposes. Basically I have got e-Sata/USB2.0 cradle and 2 drives. When I need to do a peform a backup I "on" the drive cradle, do a backup, when replace a drive in a cradle with another one - idea is to keep each drive in different locations to make sure that backup data is not lost in case of theft or fire.

The PROBLEM is that when I power the cradle - one of the drives successfully gets a drive letter - I use the same "L" letter for both no be able to use the same backup scripts with each drive, while another one fails to assign a letter itself so I have to do it manually in a

Computer Management snap-in -> Storage -> Disk management -> RMB click on a drive item -> Change drive letter and paths.

It is annoying to do it every time for one drive while I don't have to do for another - absolutely identical drive.

Any ideas how to make a drive letter stick to the second drive?

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The solution is to use the free USBDLM:

USBDLM is a Windows service that gives control over Window's drive letter assignment for USB drives. Running as service makes it independent of the logged on user's privileges, so there is no need to give the users the privilege to change drive letters.

Basically, one puts a small text file on the root directory of the disk, which dictates the drive-letter to use for this disk.

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The problem is that windows knows that they are different drives by their ids and you are trying to assign the same letter to both. To avoid conflicts windows only lets you assign a letter to a single volume at a time.

One way to solve this is to remove the manually assigned letter from both. Then when you connect the drive they will both be automatically assigned the next available letter, which assuming no other drives are changing, will be the same for both drives. Adjust your scripts to match the new letter.

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