1492 wrote:
All storage devices including flash drives have a unique ID, which is recorded in the registry every time you connect the drive. This is how forensic analysis can tell if a computer has accessed a specific drive in an investigation.
If you need 3 backup drives,seems to make more sense to use an external raid with parity. You would have your single drive letter, and would be safer than one large drive, or even 3 separate drives in event of a HD failure.
Good points.
Although Windows does keep a record of serial numbers in the registry there is no real good reason at all to manually assign a drive letter to the backup drive(s)..
Windows is designed to automatically assign the next available drive letter..
The OP is not dealing with a LAN in which you would "map" the network drives to specific drive letters in order to have static fixed drive letters when connected to that network.
Manually assigning a drive letter to a removable device is not needed and in many cases like what the OP has run into tends to cause problems.
That is why MS has over the last few OS releases REMOVED many features and utilities in order to reduce the chances of a user from causing harm to the OS, in a sense "dumbing down" the OS interface..
I would simply allow the PC to assign the next available drive letter when any of the drives are connected.. Then set the backup software for that first available drive letter..
Even if the OP is using three different external drives in rotation, there is no real good reason to assign a drive letter.. The backup software doesn't care as long as the drive letter it is setup for is present at the time of backup..
Op is merely making a simple backup routine into a big headache, just affix a big label physically on to the side of to each drive.. Label as backup one, backup two, backup three..
Use Drive ONE for say Sunday night, Drive TWO for Wed night, Drive Three for Fri night and you are "covered".. Just rotate through..
