Disk Management: Windows 10, LrC: I plugged in an old portable hard drive that previously had designation "F". My lovely machine gave it "I". LrC would not recognize content. Actually...

cptiger Loc: Englewood, FL

Windows 10, LrC: I plugged in an old portable hard drive that previously had designation "F". My lovely machine gave it "I". LrC would not recognize content. Actually, it did recognize the "I", but Lightroom knows path "F". Have I confused you? Disk management would not let me reassign it to "F". I'm stumped. I was disconnecting the drive because it slowed startup. Any ideas are greatly appreciated, thanks.

BebuLamar

Do you have any device as F in the disk management?

therwol Loc: USA

I have no idea if this will work. Reboot the machine and plug it in before it boots up. (Shutting down and booting up again doesn't get rid of a lot of settings so it can boot faster.)

BebuLamar

If the computer doesn't assign anything as F you can reassign the I to F. But you said you can't perhaps it assigned something as F. How many drive does it shows in disk management?

SteveInConverse Loc: South Texas

Unplug USB drives or any drive you may have connected since the last time you used that drive. You have a drive G H and I right now. Unplug those and the drive you're having an issue with should be F again.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

You could just relink the images in Lightroom — linking one in a folder should link all the others in that folder.

When moving images, always do it within Lightroom if that is your catalog manager.

cptiger Loc: Englewood, FL

BebuLamar wrote:

Do you have any device as F in the disk management?

Thx for getting back. On the top half of disk mgmt nothing refers to "F", however, the lower half does indicate an "F" with no media.

cptiger Loc: Englewood, FL

Bingo, I had a card reader plugged in. Unplugged everything. Restarted. Plugged in the portable that was "I". It still came up as "I", but in Disk mgmt I was able to assign to "F". Thank you all for your support.

r1ch Loc: Colorado

cptiger wrote:

Windows 10, LrC: I plugged in an old portable hard drive that previously had designation "F". My lovely machine gave it "I". LrC would not recognize content. Actually, it did recognize the "I", but Lightroom knows path "F". Have I confused you? Disk management would not let me reassign it to "F". I'm stumped. I was disconnecting the drive because it slowed startup. Any ideas are greatly appreciated, thanks.

Did you try this.

o change a driver letter in Disk Management, complete the following:

Right-click the drive you would like to change.
Click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
Click Change.
Click Assign the following drive letter.
Click the letter you want to use.
Click OK.

If this does not work, is there a drive that is assigned this letter? Also if it does not work. What is the error?

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Plug in the card reader and assign it the letter ‘R’

If you define all your peripherals you can reduce such problems.

Kespina

I've encountered the same problem. Now I just leave my external hard drives plugged in all the time. Not sure if this is a real solution, but it works for me.

Toment Loc: FL, IL

👍👍👍

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Kespina wrote:

I've encountered the same problem. Now I just leave my external hard drives plugged in all the time. Not sure if this is a real solution, but it works for me.

Only potential problem would be line surges. They can kill a disk, but if the disk is unplugged it would be safe.

If you assign letters at the end of the alphabet to the important drives the rest of them can just use whatever letter is next.

frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

burkphoto wrote:

You could just relink the images in Lightroom — linking one in a folder should link all the others in that folder.

When moving images, always do it within Lightroom if that is your catalog manager.

If he just relinks the drive, then latter unplugs it, it will/could be assigned another drive letter, causing the problem again. Any external drives used with LR should be assigned permanent drive letters.

Because this can happen for what we think are unexplained reasons, I always mark my physical drives with a permanent marker with the drive letter that I assigned. In addition to drive letter I also add description of ie "old photos 2019 and older (O:)". Works for me.

frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

cptiger wrote:

Windows 10, LrC: I plugged in an old portable hard drive that previously had designation "F". My lovely machine gave it "I". LrC would not recognize content. Actually, it did recognize the "I", but Lightroom knows path "F". Have I confused you? Disk management would not let me reassign it to "F". I'm stumped. I was disconnecting the drive because it slowed startup. Any ideas are greatly appreciated, thanks.

Unplug AL external drives. Then plug in your drive F. Does the computer notice it as F? If not, plug in the other drives. Is one of them F? If not reassign the old F drive back to F.