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ATTN moderators: This is a reposting of a question that had been marked as a duplicate, with a reference to this question: Is there any way to force Windows to map inserted USB drives using the first available drive letter? Please note that my question below is not the same and is not a duplicate of that question. To be clear, I am not asking about assignment of USB drives to drive letters, but rather device mapping (e.g. \Device\Harrdisk1\Partition1). I had attempted to make this clear in the title by specifically indicating that I was not asking about drive letters. Therefore, it would be very much appreciated if you could refrain from marking this question as a duplicate of the aforementioned other question.

I use two separate USB drives each day. For security reasons, they are removed and securely stored separately from the PC at the end of each day, and each morning I retrieve them and plug them in. Each of them contains a separate Veracrypt volume which is mounted when they're plugged in. Different files are written on each volume, which in some cases is automatic, so each must be mounted to a specific drive letter.

The (perhaps admittedly minor) issue that I encounter is that the device mapping of each USB drive randomly changes. Let's call the two physical drives Alpha and Beta. Some days, Alpha shows up in Veracrypt as \Device\Harrdisk1\Partition1, while other days it shows up as \Device\Harrdisk2\Partition1. The same of course applies to Beta. I don't know of any way to discern one from the other prior to mounting in Veracrypt, so sometimes Alpha ends up being mounted to Y: when it should be mounted to X:.

I can of course examine the contents of a given drive once mounted to see if I've mounted the correct drive to the correct drive letter, but it's a bit of a pain to do this each day, every day. And on occasion I do forget to check and it causes more problems.

What I'd like to know is if there is any way to "fix" the device mapping of each of USB drives so that it remains persistent over time, such that each time Alpha is plugged in, it will always be mapped to \Device\Harrdisk1\Partition1 (and of course the same with Beta).

Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

user415851
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  • Does Veracrypt _show_ you a list of these names that you must select from, or does it ask you to _input_ a device name? There are symlinks pointing to these names that are a little more static. – u1686_grawity Apr 21 '22 at 16:19
  • Both options exist in Veracrypt. There's a field in which you can type in the volume name, or you can click "Select Device..." and it will present a list. Would be great if you could elaborate on your mention of symlinks and how to find and use them - that could be the solution I'm looking for... – user415851 Apr 21 '22 at 16:30
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    If the other question was closed as a duplicate that you disagree with then you should edit it to clarify why it is not a duplicate and potentially post a comment to that effect as well. Then your question can be submitted for review and potentially be reopened.. You should not simply repost questions. – Mokubai Apr 21 '22 at 16:32
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    How is `\Device\Harrdisk1\Partition1` different from `\Device\Harrdisk1\Partition1`, they look the same to me? – Mokubai Apr 21 '22 at 16:37
  • As mentioned, please [edit your original question](https://superuser.com/posts/1717213/edit) so that it can be reopened. – Mokubai Apr 21 '22 at 17:05
  • Sure. Done. Should I delete this one? – user415851 Apr 21 '22 at 17:15

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