Make a Portable Device a Drive Letter

How do you turn a Portable Device which appears as "This PC\My Device" under Win 10 or 11, so I can script it in CMD? I try Easy Access > Map as Drive in Explorer but I can't construct a recognisable path to it

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

How do you turn a Portable Device which appears as "This PC\My Device" under Win 10 or 11, so I can script it in CMD? I try Easy Access > Map as Drive in Explorer but I can't construct a recognisable path to it

This should help: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-mount-hard-drive-....

Thanks but sorry, this doesn't fit the bill. It sorta does the reverse by replacing a drive letter by a folder. Also the Portable Device does not appear in Disk Mgt.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Thanks but sorry, this doesn't fit the bill. It sorta does the reverse by replacing a drive letter by a folder. Also the Portable Device does not appear in Disk Mgt.

Sorry if it was a bum steer. However I used the information for Windows 10 from that link and now have three USB sticks and a portable USB HDD registered to folders in Windows Explorer so I can back things up with the Fast Copy utility without worrying whether the drive letter is going to change.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

How do you turn a Portable Device which appears as "This PC\My Device" under Win 10 or 11, so I can script it in CMD? I try Easy Access > Map as Drive in Explorer but I can't construct a recognisable path to it

Use built-in Disk Management to Add or Change drive letter while the portable device is connected. The details and drive letter are then recorded in the registry

Again, thanks but sorry. The Portable Device does not even appear in Disk Mgt.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

How do you turn a Portable Device which appears as "This PC\My Device" under Win 10 or 11, so I can script it in CMD? I try Easy Access > Map as Drive in Explorer but I can't construct a recognisable path to it

Put your question into Google AI and indeed CMD is not going to play. But if you then ask the supplementary question "is there an alternative to CMD which allows you to script for a portable device?" you get this:

Yes, PowerShell is the best native alternative to CMD for this task. It completely removes the need for drive letters because it can tap directly into the Windows Shell namespace—the exact same backend system that File Explorer uses to display your device under "This PC".

and a load more info on how to do this.

Drive letters are by now completely outmoded. Linux and Unix have had a single directory tree since before DOS and if I were still doing Windows, I would definitely be moving away from CMD.

https://www.tenforums.com/drivers-hardware/111728-ho...

this thread may help

There was a tool that allowed you to make a removeable drive non- removable. I had used that tool many years ago and worked for my usage

I suspect whatever this device is, its not showing up as a USB Storage Device. Is this perhaps an external camera? If it doesn’t show in Disk Management then Windows doesn’t see it as a storage device, so won’t give it a drive letter.

E.g. Apple iPhone/iPad show up this way, as they are read-only for copying photos from the device.

More about the device might help relevant suggestions as the rest of the thread appears to have missed this isn’t a storage device.

Unless this is a USB stick formatted on Mac or Linux and Windows can’t identify the file system?

It all depends upon what device it is. For example, modern iPhones and Android phones won’t act like an external drive without special software and/or changes made on the device. If it doesn’t show in disk management then it’s not a valid storage device. In addition, you may need appropriate USB drivers for it to be recognised.

So, what is the device?

It's a Kindle. It shows in Device Mgr as a Portable Device. Manually I can read. write & delete files on it . To all intents & purposes it is a disk drive. It just doesn't have a drive letter.

You can’t assign a drive letter to a Kindle.

USB has about 30 different device classes, and within each class many sub types. You need “mass storage class” to assign a drive letter; your kindle is likely not using this. (Ask Amazon why not).

The info is here:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/d...

Microsoft WPD implements a class driver solution for the following standard protocols and transports:
* Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) over USB, IP, and Bluetooth
* Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) over USB, IP, and Bluetooth
* Mass Storage Class (MSC) over USB

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

It's a Kindle. It shows in Device Mgr as a Portable Device. Manually I can read. write & delete files on it . To all intents & purposes it is a disk drive. It just doesn't have a drive letter.

Sorry, I may not have read your opening post carefully enough and asked the right questions. It now looks like the device is showing in a device tree on your windows box, but the kindle filesystem is not necessarily integrated into the windows filesystem, but exists as an island on its own. There are generally 2 ways of moving files from a connected device to a target device

• Inclusion of the connected device file system or a part of it into the filesystem
• some form of file transfer protocol

On reflection, this appears to be the latter, which is disguising itself as the former. The device is integrated into the target system filesystem, but the device filesystem may not be. You are probably enabled to transfer files by software 'methods' [which may well be proprietary] being exposed to the target system graphical interface ie accessible via right click, but not necessarily exposed to the commands used for scripting.

Even if it is the latter case, it may still be accessible for scripting if you can see the underlying API, but I think you may find that assigning a drive letter may be the least of your problems - and may be irrelevant if you have to go to a scripting environment other than CMD.

I fear you are overcomplicating things. The Kindle filesystem is integrated into Windows in that their files look like files, you can copy files from Windows to it, move them around, copy them back to Windows, delete them & ditto for directories. The usual Copy, Cut, Paste, Delete & Rename appear on their Context Menus & do what it says on the tin. Indeed 1 of the ways Amazon suggests of getting books onto the Kindle is to copy files from Windows filestore to a particular directory of it over USB.

No proprietary s/ware or FTP is involved to allow this.

The only thing missing is a Drive letter so I can refer to it in a script using a Batch File.

You're confusing "file system" with the USB protocol used to access the storage. Apple iPhones also appear as an object in the Windows Explorer file manager, but they also do not have a drive letter.

The "driver" for the various types of transfer protocol are built in to Windows, the link I posted previously. Your Kindle doesn't use the same protocol as a USB memory stick, so you can't give it a drive letter.

Tools such as Calibre do not care about drive letters.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

I fear you are overcomplicating things.

Well, that's one way of dismissing an explanation - possibly at the price of you never solving this

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

The Kindle filesystem is integrated into Windows in that their files look like files, you can copy files from Windows to it, move them around, copy them back to Windows, delete them & ditto for directories. The usual Copy, Cut, Paste, Delete & Rename appear on their Context Menus & do what it says on the tin. Indeed 1 of the ways Amazon suggests of getting books onto the Kindle is to copy files from Windows filestore to a particular directory of it over USB.

Just because the usual Copy, Cut, Paste, Delete & Rename appear on their Context Menus, it is not necessarily the case that the underlying methods [functions] to achieve the actions are the same. It is just that the menu which fronts up a different set of methods looks near enough identical.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

No proprietary s/ware or FTP is involved to allow this.

Or at least, it is not evident until you try to use drive letter

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

The only thing missing is a Drive letter so I can refer to it in a script using a Batch File.

As I said up thread, I think you are more likely to have success using Powershell and forgetting about drive letters. Drive letters were already legacy before anyone thought of connecting a Kindle and CMD is equally legacy. Powershell was not invented as eye candy [although the name undoubtedly was]. Microsoft took a decision to create a new shell rather than enhance CMD.

Drive letters and CMD are only kept on for backwards compatibility and you cannot expect M$ to support them for anything which postdates Powershell.