USB key letter assignement

Hi all. Newby here

Sorry if i post on the wrong group, but it looks like there is a lot of
knowledge around here, so ...

I am trying to find a way to force windozs (XP) to assign a particular
letter when the usb key is inserted. I was thinking of making an
autorun pointing to a bat file (on the key) with some magic command
that would mount the key with a specific drive letter.

But so far, no luck. Anyone with some good advice?

Many thanks in advance.

Dan

Maxim
Wed Jan 04 10:16:19 CST 2006

Why is the default assignment bad? at least it will not clash with
anything.

Otherwise:
- write the PnP filter for Volume class and register it
- the filter must be 100% no-op passthru, except the path for
IOCTL_MOUNTDEV_QUERY_SUGGESTED_LINK_NAME, which you must implement yourself.

--
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation
maxim@storagecraft.com
http://www.storagecraft.com

"petiot" <Dan.Vera@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1136382155.102961.169530@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hi all. Newby here
>
> Sorry if i post on the wrong group, but it looks like there is a lot of
> knowledge around here, so ...
>
> I am trying to find a way to force windozs (XP) to assign a particular
> letter when the usb key is inserted. I was thinking of making an
> autorun pointing to a bat file (on the key) with some magic command
> that would mount the key with a specific drive letter.
>
> But so far, no luck. Anyone with some good advice?
>
> Many thanks in advance.
>
> Dan
>

Ray
Wed Jan 04 14:30:54 CST 2006

I would be interesting to hear what it is that you think this will
accomplish, because there's probably a better way to do whatever it is.

Anyway, what if someone plugged in 2 of these?

But, there is a management console snap-in for Disk Management that
allows you to change the driver letter assigned to a particular piece of
media. So it's probably possible, though you're also probably in
undocumented territory.

petiot wrote:
> Hi all. Newby here
>
> Sorry if i post on the wrong group, but it looks like there is a lot of
> knowledge around here, so ...
>
> I am trying to find a way to force windozs (XP) to assign a particular
> letter when the usb key is inserted. I was thinking of making an
> autorun pointing to a bat file (on the key) with some magic command
> that would mount the key with a specific drive letter.
>
> But so far, no luck. Anyone with some good advice?
>
> Many thanks in advance.
>
> Dan
>


--
Ray

petiot
Thu Jan 05 04:06:07 CST 2006

Ray Trent wrote:
> I would be interesting to hear what it is that you think this will
> accomplish, because there's probably a better way to do whatever it is.

Well, initially i wanted a specific letter to be assigned to the key
for file/folder synchronisation purposes i.e. when i plug the key, the
content of my email client (on the PC) is synchronised with the one on
the key. I guess to do that i need to know which letter will be
assigned to the key.

Another reason is that i have played with sammurize, which is a little
apps to make fancy display for various computer resource usage (e.g.
disk usage), and one more time i need to know the key letter as it is
reauired to configure sammurize.

But anyway, by telling you about this, i was just trying to quench your
curiosity. But as you see, it is nothing imoprtant: And as for the
anser from Maxim, it seems you are way out of my league as i dont even
know what a "PnP filter for Volume class" is. So, sorry if i have
wasted your time, but thanks anyway;

Dan

Mark
Thu Jan 05 06:10:20 CST 2006

On 5 Jan 2006 02:06:07 -0800, "petiot" <Dan.Vera@gmail.com> wrote:

>Ray Trent wrote:
>> I would be interesting to hear what it is that you think this will
>> accomplish, because there's probably a better way to do whatever it is.
>
>Well, initially i wanted a specific letter to be assigned to the key
>for file/folder synchronisation purposes i.e. when i plug the key, the
>content of my email client (on the PC) is synchronised with the one on
>the key. I guess to do that i need to know which letter will be
>assigned to the key.
>

No - wrong way to do this. Use the volume guid name to uniquely
identify a volume. That value should be invariant and frees you from
device letter nonsense.

>Another reason is that i have played with sammurize, which is a little
>apps to make fancy display for various computer resource usage (e.g.
>disk usage), and one more time i need to know the key letter as it is
>reauired to configure sammurize.
>

So map volume guid name to drive letter.

>But anyway, by telling you about this, i was just trying to quench your
>curiosity. But as you see, it is nothing imoprtant: And as for the
>anser from Maxim, it seems you are way out of my league as i dont even
>know what a "PnP filter for Volume class" is. So, sorry if i have
>wasted your time, but thanks anyway;
>
>Dan


=====================
Mark Roddy DDK MVP
Windows Vista/2003/XP/2000 Consulting
Device and Filesystem Drivers
Hollis Technology Solutions 603-321-1032
www.hollistech.com