WIN-XP, SP III. Good news is after six hours I fixed the problem. Bad news is I can't help anyone else as don't know which of many things I did was successful.
Memo to self: what a truly piece of crap software WIN uses for allocating letters & etc to its removable drives.
In my ideal world:
You'd plug a drive in.
WIN look for an ID tag on the drive, if not found would allocate an ID tag (letter ?) on the screen and also - v. important - write the tag onto the drive.
You'd plug the drive in the next time.
WIN look for an ID tag on the drive, find it, think "we've been here before" and allocate the same id tag/letter on the screen.
Far too simple.
Last edited by OFSO; 10th Sep 2012 at 17:55.