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alanh72597336
Participating Frequently
September 20, 2026
Answered

Retaining external drive letters on different USB sockets

I have more external USB drives than USB sockets on my PC.  This requires me to occasionally swap the main USB drive holding my RAW files to another socket or to reconnect after it has been removed. Lightroom often doesn’t recognize that it is the same drive and allocates a new drive letter, consequently it says files not found and I have to re-sync all of the files which loses the history of which files have been edited.  Could you have Lightroom recognize the drive and allocate it the original drive letter and retain it even after removal.

      dj_paige
      dj_paigeCorrect answer
      Legend
      September 30, 2026

      I have a couple of hubs, granted not powered, but they don’t seem to show the drives correctly when connected and there is a significant performance issue which isn’t good when dealing with 50mb image files.  Renaming at the end of the alphabet seems to have sorted it short term.  i agree that LRc doesn’t use the drive letters apart from at import but if you have a catalogue exceeding 100,000 images it is very time-consuming to keep re-importing!! 

      You should not have to keep re-importing photos, regardless of this drive issue. But you didn’t explain why you are re-importing. Please describe this problem in more detail, because I think people here can help.

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      14 replies

      Califdan2
      Califdan2
      Inspiring
      September 30, 2026

      LrC does not change drive letters - period.   Windows handles drive letters and LrC uses those drive letters a part of the path to find images.   If Windows changes a drive letter, then LrC will no longer be able to find the images on that drive as it will still be looking for the old drive letter.  

      When Windows Boots, it first assigns the C drive (boot drive) letter (A and B were for those old floppy disks but the OS still reserves those two letters).  It then assigns drive letters in alphabetical order in the order it finds drives (internal first then external drives).  So, depending on what’s plugged in at boot time, drive letters can change.  

      However, if you lock in a drive letter for a drive in Windows it registers that drives’ serial number along with the drive letter you pick.  For these drives, when you boot and it sees this drive instead of using the next letter in the alphabet, it assigns the drive letter you picked as long is it is not already taken by another drive - that’s why we say to assign letters in a 2nd part of the alphabet.   

       

      Which port, socket, or hub a particular drive is plugged into is irrelevent if you’ve assigned a drive letter for that drive (as long as that letter has not already been assigned when it sees that drive).

       

      Passive Hubs have noticably slower performance than do powered hubs.  

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        Thor Egil Leirtrø
        Known Participant
        September 30, 2026

        No need to re-sync or re-import anything. You just need to re-link the folder - https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/desktop/manage-catalogs-and-files/locate-missing-photos.html

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        Thor Egil Leirtrø Freelance concert photographer - thoregilphoto.com
        alanh72597336Author
        Participating Frequently
        September 30, 2026

        I have a couple of hubs, granted not powered, but they don’t seem to show the drives correctly when connected and there is a significant performance issue which isn’t good when dealing with 50mb image files.  Renaming at the end of the alphabet seems to have sorted it short term.  i agree that LRc doesn’t use the drive letters apart from at import but if you have a catalogue exceeding 100,000 images it is very time-consuming to keep re-importing!! 

        Translate
        dj_paige
        dj_paigeCorrect answer
        Legend
        September 30, 2026

        I have a couple of hubs, granted not powered, but they don’t seem to show the drives correctly when connected and there is a significant performance issue which isn’t good when dealing with 50mb image files.  Renaming at the end of the alphabet seems to have sorted it short term.  i agree that LRc doesn’t use the drive letters apart from at import but if you have a catalogue exceeding 100,000 images it is very time-consuming to keep re-importing!! 

        You should not have to keep re-importing photos, regardless of this drive issue. But you didn’t explain why you are re-importing. Please describe this problem in more detail, because I think people here can help.

        Translate
        alanh72597336Author
        Participating Frequently
        September 30, 2026

        OK, If the drive letter alters then LRc can’t find the source images. I can spend time moving drives to different sockets but that does not necessarily realign the drive letter.  Therefore to access the images I need to reimport them as the original drive is unrecognised. All of my RAW files are on 2 drives a 6TB and a 16TB.  The 6TB is older images the 16TB is the newer working drive, I occasionally swap them to veiw older images. They do not realign with the original drive letters LRc recognises. Does that explain the issue?  Having the drive letters at the end of the alphabet has resolved this issue as Windows no longer seeks to reassign the drives to vacant early slots.

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        Califdan2
        Califdan2
        Inspiring
        September 28, 2026

        You can also look for a hub (I suggest a Powered Hub rather than a Passive Hub for better performance) that exapands the number of USB devices you can plug into a single port on your PC.  Although use of hubs do introduce a bit of a perormance hit, using one for the drives containing your images is usually fine.  Other than during import, LrC doesn’t put all the much demand on the images drive.

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        Per Berntsen
        Community Expert
        Per BerntsenCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        September 20, 2026

        Drive letters are managed by Windows – not Lightroom Classic.
        When an external drive is connected to your computer, Windows will assign the first unused drive letter in the alphabet. The next time you connect this drive, the first unused letter may be a different one, so the drive letter will change.

        You can prevent this from happening by assigning a letter towards the end of the alphabet to your main external drive. If you choose Y or Z, you can probably be certain that it will never change.
        In the File Explorer, right click This PC, choose Manage, then choose Disk Management, right click the drive, and choose Change drive letter and paths.
         



         

         

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          alanh72597336Author
          Participating Frequently
          September 21, 2026

          Thank you for this, I was aware it was a MS issue with drive letter changes but had envisaged that Lightroom could use more than the drive letter to check the drive, i.e. look at the drive meta data.  If that is not the case then the advice to rename the drives at the end of the alphabet is sound and i will follow it.  Cheers.

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