Re: actual on topic question (warning does not involve beer or boobies)

Rev Turd Fredericks wrote:
Boxington Headmaker wrote:
"Rev Turd Fredericks" <turdfred2@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:uACjj.5569$8C1.4099@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In win XP how do you force an external drive to use a specific drive letter? My boss has a lacie 100GB external drive (the kind that is powered solely by the usb port) for his IBM thinkpad. He has some outlook mail folders on it and when he plugs it in to the computer, it seems the drive is randomly assigned a drive letter rather than using the same one every time. This causes outlook to have a *** fit because it is expecting the folders to be on drive E: (for example) but instead the drive was assigned drive D: Any ideas?

#1
Right click My Computer -> Manage. select Storage -> Drive Management. Right click the appropriate removable drive -> Change drive letter and path. finally choose the drive letter to use. It *should* remember it next time.

or #2

Mount it as a folder in a partition on your hard disk. You could also use your little USB drive to share files across a network.

Here is how you could set it all up:
1. Plug the USB drive into your computer.
2. Click on the Start menu, then right-click on My Computer and select Manage.
3. When the Computer Management window opens, expand the entry labeled Storage and choose Disk Management.
4. Find the entry for your USB drive, right-click it, and select Change drive letters and paths.
5. Now click on the Add button, and select Mount in the following empty NTFS folder. You will now browse to the directory to which you want to mount the drive. If you haven't created a directory, you may do so now.
6. When done, you can now remove the drive letter which is automatically assigned to the drive and click OK. Your USB drive now has a permanent home inside your hard drive (C:).

The really nice thing about this tip is that if you ever unplug your USB keychain drive, the folder will still appear inside your hard drive directory, but you will not be able to open it.

HTH
Box


Thank you very much for the great answer. Now I just have to wait for my boss to come in to see if it works. Now at the risk of asking too many questions, any tips on using an external drive (not a network drive) with Outlook? I gave up on outlook many moons ago but some people are quite invested in it and won't change. I spent about 4 hours researching last night trying to find a solution to his issues, but only have partial solutions which I know he won't be happy with. What he wants to do is store *some* of his folders offline on the external drive and his main folders on his computer. So occasionally (maybe once a day) he wants to connect that drive and put copies of his mail on the external. Somehow, outlook has a fit and starts rebuilding the database or what have you and it takes forever. I don't have the exact outlook version but it is likely about 2-3 years old.

i think you can run outlook on one of those Sandisk U3 memory sticks.
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