USB pendrives and 2003 server

[DougL]

I am presently updating old NT servers in schools to new 2003 servers. Using the Dell precision420 i am coming across a problem with USB pen drives. As the user logs on a script runs to map various drives plus they get their G (home drive) mapped. Server is three partitions C, D, E respectively with a F CDRW. On inserting the pen drive it takes the G drive letter effectively overriding their mapped G drive. I have gone into disk management and set the pen drive to K which temporarily helps but it reverts back to G if the user tries it later. I don't want the users to go into disk management, does anyone have any ideas how i can get round this problem.

Doug

[EzyStvy]

Might try changing the CDRW to a drive letter like H. The pendrive might then grab "F".

[DougL]

Hi EzyStvy

thats a good idea, i'll try that at work tomorrow thanks.

[glc]

I've noticed this in a network environment with mapped drives. When you plug in a USB device that grabs a drive letter, it takes the first available letter IGNORING mapped drives. Because of this, I usually use drives R and W for optical Readers and Writers.

[DougL]

Update

on a test server i reassigned the CDRW to H and after creating myself a user account mapping drives etc I logged on and inserted my pen drive which picked up the vacant F drive letter, when i tried another pen drive (different make) it still picked up the G drive. Seems there is still inconsistences with different manufacturers pen drives so will continue testing.

Doug

[EzyStvy]

I just went through this today too. I plugged in an external USB drive with 4 partitions. One of the partitions grabbed a mapped drive letter that was already being used. I disconnected the mapped drive and redid it to drive Q......It'd be alot of work, but if you change the mapped drive down the chain.......