When using external drives, Lightroom doesn’t change the drive letters, but Windows often does. That can confuse Lightroom, requiring you to relink missing files on a regular basis. Leaving the drives plugged in to your computer, or always reattaching them in the same order can help avoid the drive letter changing.
If you want to set the drive letter a little more permanently, or reset them if they change, you can go into Windows Disk Management and assign a specific drive letter. You’ll need to be logged in as an Administrator. On Windows 7, go to Start menu > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management. In either case, Disk Management will then be listed in the left hand panel under Storage. Selecting this will connect to the Virtual Disk Service and will display the drives seen in the main panel.
Find the relevant drive in the list, right-click and there’s an option to Change Drive Letter and Paths. Be very careful to ensure you have the correct drive! Selecting Change will display a list of available letters to select from. Selecting a letter outside the range Windows would usually assign automatically helps to reduce the possibility of it changing, so a letter from the latter half of the alphabet is a good choice. When you’ve finished, press OK, and select Yes when prompted to confirm the drive letter change.
Thanks for the tip!!. Windows changed my drive letter when I changed the name of the drive. Now Lightroom can’t find files. Tried to re link but get message saying duplicate files already in lightroom cause now I have the old drive letter directory and the new drive letter directory in lightroom catalogue. Not sure how to fix at this point. Any ideas
Ok, it sounds like you’ve reimported the photos from the new drive letter, so they’re in the catalog twice, so you’ll need to figure out which “version” of the photo you want to keep. I’m assuming you’ve probably worked on the older (missing) drive, so you’d want to remove the photo’s records from the newer drive in LR and then you’ll be able to link your edits with the old drive.
I know that may sound a bit complicated, and it would be easier to explain with specifics, so I’d suggest posting a description and screenshots on the forum at http://www.lightroomforums.net and we’ll talk you through it. If you decide to try it yourself, just make sure you back up the catalog first, and ‘remove’ rather than delete the photos.
Reemphasizing your final point about which letters to choose: “It is best to select a letter between M and Z (inclusive). If you pick a letter like E, F, or G, the drive letter may still change frequently because these letters may be used for other drives, like CDROM drives, that are not always connected.” (from How-To Geek — http://www.howtogeek.com/96298/assign-a-static-drive-letter-to-a-usb-drive-in-windows-7/ ).
Excellent point John, thanks for bringing that up.