26 Drives? Is there a way around the 26 drive limit in Windows?

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You know?
I Was going to ask you that!
8->

That is also really cool.

However,
if you can map a local HDD as say C:\backupdrive,
then couldn't you map a ntwork drive, remap it to C:\netdrive or something, then delete the original map???

And Anyway Windows is stupid to limit 26 drives, when it could use #s instead of letters.

Well,
See-Ya

"Windows is stupid to limit 26 drives".

Just remember that Windows used to run on top of MS-DOS, which was based on another O/S ("Q-DOS", as I recall), which was compatible with CP/M-86, which was a 16-bit version of CP/M, which used drive letters just as Windows still uses them. Changing them to numbers 25 years later just won't cut it.

Unix (and its derivitives) has been using "mount points" since its inception. It's about time Windows caught up.

Of course, simply using UNC format ("\\server\share\path\...") removes the needs for drive letters as well.

Drive letters still have their uses, of course. For example, every system on our LAN calls its CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive "R:". (Much better than the DOS and older-Windows default method of changing the CD drive letter when you added a secondary HD.)

I want to put Windows&Documents and Settings on a seperate disk then Program Files; and I want to put the page file on it's own disk also. I imagine that Documents and Settings&Windows would have to go on different partitions of the same disk or seperate disks altogether. But How would I go about this, presumeably from re-install

While mounting junctions is useful there are some problems with their implementation. One is how the recycling bin responds to a junction.

First try this out:

Goto your drive that you have mounted and make a new folder on that drive.

Now try moving that folder to the recycling bin. Notice the system will sit for a while and then respond with an Access Denied message.

The reason is somewhat explained by Microsoft in KB243514 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/243514/).

In a nutshell the recycle bin is unable to handle folders on a junction mounted drive, and the only work around is to bypass the recycle bin by perma-deleting the folder using shift-del, the rd command, or by turning off recycle bin on the drive the junction is mounted on.

Fortunately files are don't cause problems so if you need to delete a folder from a junction mounted drive, first move the files in the folder to the recycle bin then perma delete the folder. This is of course is assuming you care about the use of the recycle bin but thats a different issue.

Hi
I had been told to limit the hard disk letter to a tight list let say only A, B, C that way i can prevent installing USB, CDROM or any other mass storage device. Do you think it is still feasible?

I run a Citrix network at my workplace. One workstation has the data cached onto the hard drives and the other workstation has the Terminal Services Client and Applications. One of the Applications we use requires lots of "reference materials" from the Caching PC. The program creates a the drives on the Caching PC, shares it over to the TSC PC and loads a data source (a reference book). When the program closes it erases the data from the shared drive deletes the drive itself. The process is repeated on each application start-up but refers also to each different Citrix Launch. The application currently reads from 12 data books simultaneously (due to network and drive constraints from G-X). We are about to buy a product with 21 Reference materials. If i set up mounting points, will the application automatically create the same mounting points to use for the sources?

Thanks alot! This helps so much! Now I can go out & add those new HDDs, buy another computer for my network, & even (re)attach old drives collecting dust on my shelves!

I was grateful to find this work-around but after implementing it, I am having second thoughts. Using the Recycle Bin has become a pain. When deleting large files or many files at once, which I do regularly, it takes several minutes just to complete the process. It takes as long to delete files as it does to "wipe" them using the Peter Gutmann (35 pass) wipe.
I understand I can try disabling the recycle bin completely and that may solve this problem, but it's not unheard of for me to restore accidentally deleted files or unforeseen necessary ones.
Bottom line: I value the recycle bin's purpose, is there any work-around for the slow deletion issue?

Thanks,
Timogin

System specs:
Self built as always.
Windows XP Pro SP2
AMD64 Dual Core 5600+
4GB RAM (Windows limited at 3+GB)
Drives in question are all SATA300 (300mbps enabled) Mostly Seagate, a couple WD. (approaching 3Tb total)
Motherboard - Foxconn C51XEM2AA (AM2 NVIDIA nForce 590)

Hi Leo,

I read your article "26 Drives? Is there a way around the 26 drive limit in Windows?"

One question: does the drive to be mounted to the empty NTFS folder has to be formated as NTFS? In other words, can a drive of FAT be mounted to the empt NTFS folder?

I would appreciate it if you can email me back to verify that!

Robert

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Yes. I've mounted FAT formatted SD and CF cards using this
technique.

Leo

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