Is It Possible To Have Drive Numbers (In Windows)?

Possible Duplicate:
What if the hard disk is partitioned into more than 26 sections in Windows?
Is it possible to mount a volume to a custom drive prefix, e.g. “myDrive:\”?

The question I'm asking is, is it possible to have drive numbers, in addition to drive letters, in Windows? If so, how, and if not, then why? It would be very useful to be able to use numbers in place of letters, since numbers are infinite whereas singular letters would limit you to having no more than 26 drives. Also, is there a way to have more than 26 drives, and by what means can this be achieved? I'm just curious is all. Thanks!

Enigma83

Posted 2013-02-04T16:25:53.297

Reputation: 333

@ Karan You're right, it is a possible duplicate. But for me this does have a practical use since I do believe I would have need for 26+ drives in the near future. I'm running multiple OSes as well. I did search first and couldnt find the question you linked. Thanks! – Enigma83 – 2013-02-04T18:24:53.890

Answers

Drive numbers are not supported in Windows.

However the number of drives supported by Windows has no limits, as far as I know.

One method of having large numbers of drives is to mount drives as folders inside of other drives.

Keltari

Posted 2013-02-04T16:25:53.297

Reputation: 57 019

@ Keltari: Thanks for the answer. I figured that drive numbers would not be supported in Windows, or else they would probably be obvious. But there are often unofficial ways to do things. I did not know that you can mount drives as folders inside other drives. Once again thanks for the insight. – Enigma83 – 2013-02-04T20:59:37.150

If all drive letters are exhausted you can Mount your drives as NTFS folders

Open Computer Management by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, clicking Administrative Tools, and then double-clicking Computer Management. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

In the Navigation pane, under Storage, click Disk Management.

Right-click the drive that you want to mount, and then click Change Drive Letter and Path.

Click Add, click Mount in this NTFS folder, and then either type the path to an empty folder on an NTFS drive or click Browse to locate it, and then click OK.

Click OK again.

This is the most acceptable and easiest way if you run out of drive letters

swapyonubuntu

Posted 2013-02-04T16:25:53.297

Reputation: 732

To create a Volume Mount Point under Windows you first must use NTFS, then follow those steps:

Click Start, click Run, and then type compmgmt.msc in the Open box.
In the left pane, click Disk Management.
Right-click the partition or volume that you want to mount, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
Click Add, then Mount and browse to any empty folder.

In my humble opinion you'd better buy a NAS or SAN appliance and use RAID or JBOD with ZFS to virtualize your storage, this way you'll get more performances, resiliency and flexibility with your data.

Shadok

Posted 2013-02-04T16:25:53.297

Reputation: 3 760