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Changing a Drive Name

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I have been reading some of the other topics regarding backup drive letters and different drive letters in WinRE vs Windows.  Recommendations were made to give the drive a name, such as Music E: .  I believe this is a great idea.  My question has to do with existing backup tasks.  Does changing a drive name impact existing backup tasks?  Could it cause an error "Drive not available"?  I am willing to conduct a test, but it will take several hours.

Thanks

FtrPilot

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Randy, I have been giving obvious names to my drives / partitions for some time and the only impact on any existing backup is that these would not show the new drive names, plus not sure if you would need to reselect the source drive for that existing task (or whether this is picked up based on the drive unique identifier?).

My approach is to show the assigned drive letter first rather than last in the name but this is a matter of personal preference.  

2017-10-28 16_39_02.png

I found this very useful recently after having to roll back from a Windows Insider build and found that my drive letters had changed, so needed to be put back as I had them previously via Windows Disk Management.

Steve...thanks.  I believe this is a great idea and will use it going forward.  I just wondered if it causes problems with existing backup tasks, in particular, incremental or differential backups.

I am setting up a trial run, and should have an answer in a couple of hours.

I learn a lot reading the various topics in this blog...not just ATI issues, but hardware and Windows issues.  My personal thanks to you, all of the MVPs, and all who give their time to offer help and suggestions to those having problems.

Regards,

FtrPilot

My drives get names that indicate the physical drive and purpose (ie, Samsung 960 EVO System, WD 1TB Data).

But when I look into a .tib, whether it is from the ATI UI or Windows Explorer, it only shows the drive letter and not the name.

As Bruno says...when using Windows explorer, the drive name does not show.

Rename_WinExplorer_Screen.png

However when proceeding with a recovery, then drive letter and name are displayed.

Recovery1.png

Note the drive name above...OldM2Drive(F:)...this was the full backup.

I then renamed the drive and performed an incremental backup.  There were no error messages...the incremental backup completed as expected.

When selecting the incremental file for recovery...ATI displays the new drive name & letter:

Recovery2.png

So...this behaves exactly as I would expect.  No error messages, no impact on existing backup tasks, and the name displayed is based on the name when the backup (full or incremental) was performed.

Regards,

FtrPilot

This is why I also add a simple, empty text file to the root of each of my drive / partitions to indicate which is which!  This then shows when exploring the .tip file in Explorer etc.

2017-10-28 18_12_20.png

Thanks for this information, Randy. I found in the UI when I selected the Recovery tab I only saw the drive letter, but once I clicked on the Recover Disks button, I was able to see the drive name.

Steve, is it possible to add the identifying text file to the non-Windows partitions on the disk? Just curious, not that I'd see a need or desire to do so.

Bruno, have never bothering adding a text file to the hidden drives (Recovery etc) as their names tend to be self-explanatory but I guess it would be possible provided you can either add a drive letter or do this offline from Windows using such as the MVP Custom PE Media.

Steve...you should write a book...I would be the first to buy it.  Thanks once again.

I have always name partitions (where necessary I include the computer - mainly for drives with OS). This is essential with off-site backups as I need to sure I am restoring to the correct PC.

For other partitions my approach is similar to Steve's (other than for the test file in the root directory).

Ian