Auto recognize ext. HDD, even if Windows has assigned different drive letter?

[GrantRobertson]

OK, I know that IMatch "recognizes" a drive by its unique ID. So, I know if two different drives eventually get the same drive letter (At different times. I know they can't get the same letter at the same time.), then IMatch will know they are "themselves" by the unique ID and show the files that were indexed from that drive as "connected." 

In other words: 

• I index DriveA, and Windows assigns it as drive letter G:. Then I set it aside for years. 
• I index DriveB, and Windows assigns that drive to drive letter G: as well.
• Then I unplug DriveB, and plug in DriveA... And Windows decides to give that drive drive letter G: again.

I know that IMatch will show the files from DriveA as connected and the files from DriveB as disconnected.

What I cannot find any explicitly stated information on is: What would happen if I then plugged DriveB back in (while DriveA is still plugged in) and Windows decided to assign drive letter H: to DriveB? Would I then have to use the "Relocate" command to tell IMatch that those DriveB files are now located on drive letter H:? 

I have found forum topics where people complain about their drive letters getting all confused, and Mario just, essentially, says to "Manually assign specific drive letters to each external hard drive." But.... what if someone has a hell of a lot of external hard drives. I have seen times when 26 letters in the alphabet can get pretty cramped. (I'm a former network manager.) Yes, I know about NAS boxes. I know about removable hard drive bays. I am not asking about those right now. I am asking for an explicit answer about how IMatch is designed to behave in this situation. 

Thank you. 

[Mario]

Would I then have to use the "Relocate" command to tell IMatch that those DriveB files are now located on drive letter H:?

Yes. This is very quick, too.

Windows usually assigns the same drive letter to the same physical drive, unless that drive letter is already used.

But.... what if someone has a hell of a lot of external hard drives. I have seen times when 26 letters in the alphabet can get pretty cramped.

You can mount any number of drives under a single drive letter as NTFS folders in Disk Manager.
So, even if you need to attach more than 26 drives (which I would consider quite unlikely), Windows makes that easy.

[GrantRobertson]

You can mount any number of drives under a single drive letter as NTFS folders in Disk Manager.

I am aware of the method for mapping a drive to a folder. That folder, however, must exist on some other drive and be empty for one to do this. I actually used to do this for programs that couldn't keep track of drives by their Drive ID. If I recall correctly, when the drive is not attached, that folder simply appears as empty.

In your email to me, you said that you have multiple different thumb drives that all show up as drive letter M: when you plug them in. Is this the technique you use to do that? In the email, you just made it sound as if you simply plugged each one in separately and simply assigned each one the same letter. This is a slightly different technique.

I'm going to dig into all of this over the next week or two, and write up a post to explain how to use all the different techniques, including that freeware utility I mentioned in my email, and discuss pros and cons of each technique.

[Mario]

As far as I know, once you have assigned a drive letter in Windows Disk Manager to a drive, Windows remembers than and keeps it that way. Don't use the default assigned letter. Assign a letter in Windows Disk Manager.
I've always did it that way and never gave it a second though. It just works.

If you Google for this, this is also the technique given on the usual sites.

[kch]

I am aware of the method for mapping a drive to a folder.

Hi Grant,

that's the way I do and it works: I keep both the database and the image files on external SSD's. Besides assigning a drive letter via Windows Disk Manager (as Mario recommends) I additionally map these external drives to specific folders ("mountpoints"), e.g ...

c:\mountpoints\ext_drive_01
c:\mountpoints\ext_drive_02

... and so on. I always refer to these mountpoint folders then.

If you use the database on different computers (like me), just be sure to mount the drives to folders of the same name on any machine. It might be necessary though to relocate the drive's letter which holds the mountpoints to itself on these machines (see attached screenshot).

Hope this helps and I didn't get anything wrong. Please correct me if I should bark up the wrong tree.

Greetings
Kay