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