P: Allow use of Drive Letters A: and B:

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

In the import dialogue in Lightroom 3 on Windows the drive letters A: and B: does not show up. I have A: assigned to an HDD and B: assigned to an SSD where I like to save my DNG files. (It was a VERY long time ago since those drive letters were reserved for floppy drives).




My suggestion is to make all drive letters assigned to an attached storage device visible as a destination in the import dialogue.

[johnrellis]

And if you want to use the A and B drives as the destination of the import (it wasn't clear from your post), see this easy workaround:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-display-a-b-drive-letters-i... 

[merrymar]

You can import to any drive, including A: or B: by using the right-hand area of the top Import panel's "Select Destination" arrow and selecting "Other Destination". Then input the drive you want to import to, including, probably, the destination folder. You have to do the latter here because there is no way to select a destination folder using this procedure. So make or name that folder in your operating system, and select it when you are setting up the Destination drive as above.

I Imported from my camera card and from my newly named A: drive to my B: drive.

After you do this keep a lookout for your destination drive to show up on these panels. My B: drive appeared in the Source column and then disappeared. So it's still flaky, but I've been able to use Import normally with Raw, JPG and DNG imports this way. Seems neater in results, and quicker than setting up a mount point.

[timr21031184]

It is completely insane that we still can't use the A and B designators. But thanks JohnRellis for the idea to add a mount point. That is a clean solution.

[mm23501127fftv]

Light room does not allow importing from my memory cards onto either of my SSDs labeled A: and B:.

There are several discussions stating that this is due to legacy reasons (those drive letters being reserved for floppy drives) but that restriction is over two decades old. Stating that they won't bother to fix it is giving them a bad(worse) reputation that they only care about cloud customers. The effort to remove that restriction is minimal and would make the product more robust. Also, having customers relabel their drives just to fix their broken product is not a sufficient resolution either.

[JP Hess]

I don't believe that is an anomaly attributed to the Adobe software but rather one that is attributed to the operating system and is therefore not something that can be controlled.

[AxelMatt]

This isn't a bug in the Adobe software. This attributes are set in the operating system. This is not Adobe's responsibility.

You can try to bypass this with the SUBST command if needed. 

More info about SUBST you'll find here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUBST

But I'm not sure that all working fine if you use this. I'll not recommend this solution.

[johnrellis]

32- and 64-bit versions of Windows haven't reserved A: and B: for floppies for at least the past two decades (perhaps ever), though it would assign those letters by default if a floppy was present.  Win32 (starting with Windows 95) provides API calls for enumerating connected volumes and discovering their type. It's purely an Adobe programming error that LR assumes A and B are floppy drives (a programming error that was more common 15 years ago).

There used to be a Microsoft support article explaining this (linked above), but it's long gone, as are the threads in various forums discussing it -- I can find just one, from 2015.

The disastrous redesign of the Import window in LR 6.2.1 removed this programming error, and for a brief glorious moment in time, LR treated drives assigned A or B just like those assigned any other letter.

The File > Add Photos command of Lightroom Desktop (Cloudy) does it correctly:

Here's what Windows 10 shows for a USB drive assigned A:

[view836]

This is super frustrating, my main and only built in hard drive is drive A, all the other letters are for external drives, raid arrays and so on. I just want to import to my local drive A which is also where ~150000 files in my local catalog are stored. You would think that Lightroom could deduce that with that many images on the drive, it's not a floppy. Never mind which there are APIs to see what type of device it is. No excuses Adobe, floppy disks aren't even manufactured any more. This is in  LR Classic 11.3.1.

[johnrellis]

[This post contains formatting and embedded images that don't appear in email. View the post in your Web browser.]

Agreed, Adobe should have fixed this back in LR 1. 

As a workaround, click the To dropdown in the upper-right corner of the Import window, then Other Destination, and navigate to the parent folder on A: where you want imports to go:

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

"Agreed, Adobe should have fixed this back in LR 1. "

In Lr 1.x - Windows XP was still a valid OS... it would have broken things big time...

[johnrellis]

"In Lr 1.x - Windows XP was still a valid OS... it would have broken things big time..."

Windows XP. the successor to Windows NT, provided the Win32 API, which has always allowed apps to query device properties. That would have allowed LR 1 to identify which drives were unsuitable (e.g. floppies) without making assumptions about the drive letter.  (After all, you could have a floppy assigned to D:)

[Yi5C32]

I added a new hard disk(A:) to my laptop mainboard to increase storage and improve performance. However, the lightroom class cannot recognize the new disk nor the holders within it. How can I add this new disk?

 

 

[dj_paige]

Old bug/feature, which probably has never been fixed and never will be fixed. Lightroom Classic will not any drive with letter A:, and so drive A: can't be used with Lightroom Classic.

[johnrellis]

See this post for how to import from an A or B drive:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-allow-use-of-drive-letters-a-and-b/idi-p/12...

See this post for how to choose an A or B drive as the import destination:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-allow-use-of-drive-letters-a-and-b/idc-p/12... 

I agree with dj_paige that Adobe will likely never fix the problem.

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with the existing Idea:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-allow-use-of-drive-letters-a-and-b/idi-p/12...

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please replace the second correct answer above:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-allow-use-of-drive-letters-a-and-b/idc-p/12...

with this post, which is a much easier, more convenient solution for choosing an A or B drive as the Import destination:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-allow-use-of-drive-letters-a-and-b/idc-p/12...

Then the two correct answers will provide simple and easy solutions for using an A or B drive for both the Import source and Import destinations:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-allow-use-of-drive-letters-a-and-b/idi-p/12...

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-allow-use-of-drive-letters-a-and-b/idc-p/12...

[Max251645105bii]

Hi, I mounted a network share to drive letter B:\ (maybe not a good idea) -> However, within LR-Classic the drive was not shown as a possible target within the Import-Diaolog. The problem was fixed by assigning another drive letter above C:\ (e.g. O:\).

[dj_paige]

This is a known problem with drive letters A: and B:

[johnrellis]

It's a bug present from LR 1 that Adobe will almost certainly never fix:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-allow-use-of-drive-letters-a-and-b/idc-p/12...

But there are easy ways to specify the A and B drives as the source and target in Import:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-allow-use-of-drive-letters-a-and-b/idc-p/12...

[Max251645105bii]

Thank you dj_paige and jonrellis. I didn't know that.

[Dariusz23406346dczl]

Problem z importem do Lightroom.

W przypadku pracy na dysku A (kiedyś to była dyskietka) - LRC nie widzi tego dysku w źródłach. Dopiero w wyborze WYBIERZ ŹRÓDŁO i poszukaniem tego dysku jest on dostępny. Dlaczego, skoro to normalny fizyczny dysk program go nie widzi? 

[F. McLion]

It could well be that letters A and B are still system-reserved as removable floppy disk drives.

It also is still the case that Windows first system disk is always C.

I suggest not to use A and B for any drive at all.

[johnrellis]

This is a longstanding bug from LR 1 -- the A and B drives have never been reserved for floppy drives in 32-bit Windows, but LR thinks they are.  See the correct answers at the top of this thread for easy workarounds:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-allow-use-of-drive-letters-a-and-b/idi-p/12...

And see this post for a technical discussion of Windows and the A and B drives:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-allow-use-of-drive-letters-a-and-b/idc-p/12...

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this Idea:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-allow-use-of-drive-letters-a-and-b/idi-p/12...

[DizMatt]

hi, it's really simple.

I'd like to simply navigate to my B: Drive when looking to import files into lightroom.

I realise that it's just a legacy concept that A and B drive were portable (floppy) drives only, but times have moved on.

I used a high speed SSD labelled as B: drive for all sorts of tasks.

I can get there by "selecting a source" but it would be simpler if the B drive was listed along side all of my other drives.

thanks