If you have thàt many disks, Windows will have a hard time assigning unique drive letters to them. In general, the 'higher' driveletters (let's say K: and up) are safe. Keep the other drivelettres variable.
Another way to approach this, is to use 'mountpoints' instead of driveletters.
That way the contents of those disks will be shown in a folder on your local fixed disks.
Example: C:\Disks\MyBook8TB will show the contents of your MyBook8TB disk in File Explorer (if attached). But Everything will show that content anyhow; regardless if the disk is connected or not.
That will also make it easier to recognize which disk contains which files (you asked about that in another thread)
If you do that for a couple/all disks, you have room for fixed assignments for the remaining disks
Here's how:
- Create a folder somewhere on your C:-drive. Let's say C:\DISKS
- Create for all disks you want "drive-letter free" a folder under C:\DISKS that describes that disk
(let's say C:\DISKS\MyBook8TB or C:\DISKS\BackupDisk1). Don't put files (or folders) in that directory.
- Connect your MyBook8TB disk (Z:-drive ?)
- Start diskmgmt.msc as Administrator
- select that Z:-drive and right-click > Change driveletters and paths
- Click the Change button
- Select Mount in the following empty NTFS folder:
- Enter here C:\DISKS\MyBook8TB
- Click OK
Now you should see the contents of that disks in C:\DISKS\MyBook8TB
Let Everything index this disk.
Now if you search for a file that is on that disk, Everything will show it as: myfile.txt in the folder C:\DISKS\MyBook8TB\data\Myfile.txt, even if the disk is not connected (assuming you unchecked
Automatically remove offline volumes (Menu:Tools > Options > NTFS).
Bonus: you know straightaway that this file is on your MyBook8TB disk
, so you can coonect that one
NOTE: this is all untested, so better start with some 'unimportant' disks ...
