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To make EVERYTHING stated below, a LOT more clearer, PLEASE REFERENCE: What if the hard disk is partitioned into more than 26 sections in Windows?

Can this "assigning drives to a Folder" (see referenced link above) in Windows 7, be explained in a MUCH more "simpler" way, please?

How do I get my Windows 7 machine to "recognize" HDD's that surpass the 26th letter mark (Z:)? Because from what I understand, I CAN! ; )

In "reality" I have less additional letters with the following as a "normal" set-up:

• A: and B: drives are "hidden", "Floppy Drives"


• C: drive is used for OS


• D: drive is used for CD/DVD/BR R/W drive, and


• E: drive being used as a "Recovery" partition.

The link is saying that I can make a "Folder" and assign drive(s), to the folder(s). But I am at a loss as how to achieve this.

IF someone could explain this, as they were explaining it to someone who has absolutely NO clue as to what "Disc Management" is, would most certainly be appreciated. As I have absolutely NO clue... : / Simply referencing "Disc Management" might as well be referencing "Planet Pop-Tart". A step-by-step procedure explaining HOW to do this, would be awesome!!

Thank you in advance, for ALL of your time and effort that you have put into the original Thread (please see and READ link above for clarity) and thank you so much, for sharing your knowledge and information on THIS one. I am truly grateful. : ) -EB

EDIT: Thanks again, @dmb for you kind RE. : ) Just to clarify a few thing for me, if you don't mind... For your carification, not only "DM are foreign to me, but ANY of the "workings" if Windows baffles me... Like ANY of the "Administrative" utilities. LOL! Seriously! When I originally posted the request, to be "explained, as if explaining to a child"... I meant it. But it was "edited" out, for me. : S So you didn't get to read that part.

I need this explained as if one was writing a SUB-"For Dummies" book.

I am NOT seeing "Disc Management" under the "Administrative Tools" Folder. It jumps from "Data Sources (OBDC)" to "Event Viewer". No "Disc Management" in-between.

After a bit of "clicking" and looking, I DID find "Disk Management" in the the "Computer Management" pop-up window after clicking on "Administrative Tools".

I DO see an option of "Change drive letter and paths..." when I click on a drive letter under the "Volume" column...

Am I getting close?

Also, am I to create these "Mount Folders" in ADVANCE of going to "Disk Management"?

If so, the WHERE should these "Folders" be located?? Do I create them on the C: drive? On a separate, internal HDD (G:)? ...not too sure on where to go from here and I do NOT want to "crash" or make my HDD unreadable. I am TOTALLY in uncharted waters here (personally). I hope you can understand and appreciate my situation.

As for the "Why?" question? I can honestly only answer with the proverbial "Because I can, and I want to see it actually be done". ; ) And yeah, ONLY Windows... no other OS's in my "life" at the moment, or any other time in the past. LOL!! Unless an Apple IIe counts. ; )

Oh! And this may be jumping ahead a bit (maybe a LOT?) but once a HDD is "assigned" a folder, will that drive ALWAYS go to that folder (when reconnected to the computer after its been disconnected)? IDK... maybe this question should wait?!?

Also, for more clarification, I am NOT 'talking" about "pen" or "thumb-drives" I am referring to actual, spinning, platter, USB HDD's. From Desktop (powered) to portable (USB powered). Does this matter or make a difference in ANY way??

Thank you AGAIN, in advance, for the clarification and assistance on this matter. : ) -EB

PS Again, ANY help on this would surely make me feel a WHOLE lot better, as I do NOT want to "break" anything. ; ) THAT would totally SUCK!

EDIT #2:

I'm STILL not "comfortable" enough to try this procedure. I'm kind of "stuck" between creating the folder and WHEN do I plug the drive in? And THEN when does the DM comes into "play"??

I AM feeling a LOT more confident, than when I firs posted this question. : ) Thank you for that!! But am STILL not 100% there...

It would be GREAT if we could look at this as writing a short, technical manual on how to actually do this. Step-by-Step. @DMB and @LawrenceC Clarified a LOT but I am still "hazy" on a few steps and the order in which they are done.

I am NOT trying to make this ANY more difficult than it need be, I just want to be 100% sure at what I am doing and that anyone coming along after me, is 100% as well. : ) As it stands, I am not 100% confident that I can make this "happen". : ( And will not proceed until I am FULLY confident that I (or anyone as unsure as I am) can accomplish this flawlessly, the first time it is attempted. : )

Thank you all, for your patience and understanding.

There is (of course) something else that I would like to clarify. Do I HAVE to "reformat" the HDD being mounted INTO the folder or can I mount a HDD with information already ON it?

Meaning, does the HDD HAVE to be reformatted, BEFORE this "mounting to folder" thing will work -OR- Am I simply able to mount (for example) a 5TB, external HDD that is 90% full with data, to the folder WITHOUT having to reformat the HDD? This is (obviously) REALLY important to have clarified. : )

Also, to clarify, I remember reading multiple articles, when USB 1.0 FIRST came out, ...they were BOASTING 128 devices being "daisy-chained" together... now I KNOW this is a bit of a stretch and would PROBABLY result in "letting the smoke escape, out" of at least SOME of the wires... not a good thing. ; / So to be perfectly clear, this is NOT my goal. I just want to be able to plug-in, excess of the allotted "Z:" drive, into my computer. Say, a "Poor-Man's Cloud" system. LOL!! : D

This next part is ONLY for the question on "powered" -vs- Non-powered hubs and "pulling too much draw on the computer's USB port". It has absolutely NOTHING to do with "Mounting to Folders" ...at least I don't THINK it does...

For the two USB-2.0 NON-Powered and ONE USB-2.0 Powered ports, I am assuring that there are POWERED "hubs" involved. Even with the two USB-3.0 "powered" ports, I am using powered "hubs" as well. When the "portable" (non-powered) USB HDD's are being used, they ALL go into a powered hub. With no exception. The only exception, where I am using a (one [1]) "NON-powered" 4-port hub, is with four (4) POWERED, Desktop HDD"s. The 4-port, non-powered hub is in turn, plugged into a POWERED, 7-Port, USB 3.0 port. So I have "power" on both "ends" of the hub. Again, if that makes any sense?!? : )

Again, thank you ALL for at least reading this post and knowing when NOT to post anything. : ) Also, thank you, brave souls, who ARE versed enough in this "procedure" to answer and actually RE to this Thread.

HOPEFULLY, by the time that this is done, we can have the ONLY "Step-By-Step" guide on HOW to do this on the Web. As I canNOT find anything, anywhere on the 'net on how to "mount" more than just the "A-Z" drives. : ) -EB

EDIT #3 CAUTION: Loooong RE but ALMOST there:

Okay, folks… FINALLY "Grew a Pair" and took the plunge...

It was pretty much how you said it should go with a few exceptions… quite a few actually. This is how far I have gotten and the steps and “confusion” that I encountered, below. : )

One of which, when I went to the “Change Drive Letter and Paths” option, I had the following options available:

>Add   >Change   >Remove

             >Okay    >Cancel

When I selected “Change” as suggested, there was a pop-up window that appeared named: “Change Drive Letter or Path”.

In this window there were TWO “selections” that were present:

1)● ”Assign the following drive letter” <= Automatically selected (greyed-out).

2)O ”Mount in the following empty NTFS folder” <= I CAN NOT SELECT THIS OPTION…??

The ONLY “issue” is that now, #2 is NOT “available” for selection. It is “locked out”. I was ONLY able to select #1 which in turn, corresponded to a “drop-down arrow” that allowed me to select from the following drives: A, B and J. “J” being the letter that Windows ORIGINALLY assigned this drive, when the HDD was plugged-in. It is also designated “Drive 17” in Disk Management, for whatever that may be worth.

With my only options being “A”, “B” and “J”, I backed out of this pop-up window by selecting “Cancel”.

I THEN selected the “Add” radio button.

This popped-up a NEW window “Add Drive Letter or Path”.
This time the same 2 selections were available as above (“Assign the following…” and “Mount in the following…”)

1)O ”Assign the following drive letter” <= NOW, I CAN NOT SELECT THIS OPTION.

2)● ”Mount in the following empty NTFS folder” <= Automatically selected (greyed-out).

This time, the “Assign the following drive letter” option was NOT available to select. Instead the “Mount in the following empty NTFS folder” was automatically selected and greyed-out. The “Browse” button was ALSO available this time as well.

I selected the “Browse…” button and pointed the drive (“J”) to an empty folder “set” that I had previously created. Just FYI, I gave it a folder name of “Aa”. The folder path, (again, simply FYI,) looks like this:

“C:1-HDD_MntsAa”

Everything SEEMED to be “working” as I would have expected it to. Only when I navigated via Windows Explorer to the “Aa” folder, I found a “new” icon instead of the regular/standard Window 7 “Folder” icon.

It is, what appears to be, a “SHORTCUT” icon for the HDD (it -the icon- has the bent arrow in a square, at the lower left corner of the HDD icon). Everything is there. I am able to access all of the files, etc. through the "FOLDER". EXCEPT that it did NOT “UN-assign” the “original” drive letter ("J").

I STILL have the "original" drive letter assigned to the HDD as well AS having the folder “Aa” assigned to it. (But again, I iterate that it ("Aa") APPEARS to be a “shortcut” icon, instead of neither the standard, Windows “Folder” icon that it was, previous to the “mount” nor the standard “drive icon” that is assigned to that HDD.) It did NOT "release" the original drive letter ("J") that Windows assigned it, in the first place.

In Windows Explorer, drive “J” STILL HAS the “standard” HDD icon, that came with the HDD and Folder “Aa” has (again) what appears to be a “shortcut” icon to drive "J". As described above.

Okay, so now I am ABLE to access the HDD THROUGH folder “Aa” but it has not “released” the automatically assigned Drive letter ("J") so that it may be used for something else. Heh! Another HDD (or Thumb Drive, actually).

So in essence, I am BACK at square one. Well MAYBE two, since I can “bounce” my way around in Disk Management now. : ) Heh! Thanks to you, I know how to get there and that it even exists. : )

But now, I am BACK to my original question.

HOW am I able to “mount” this drive “J” (or MULTIPLE, other drives) to folders WHILE “releasing” the automatically ASSIGNED drive letters that Windows 7 gives them?? Currently, I literally have drives C-Z allocated. With at LEAST two more platter HDD’s to plug-in and a few Thumb Drives that are “in and out” periodically.

Also, HOW do I disassociate Drive “J” (or the apparent “shortcut”) that I’ve assigned to FOLDER “Aa”? Without “erasing” any information that is currently on that drive?

Am I “stuck” or is there a solution to this? It SOUNDED like one is able to mount as many drives as the USB port can handle, given that they are “assigned” to Folders and NOT the “standard” Drive Letters. : S

I remember when USB 1.0 came out... I read articles stating that "...theoretically one could mount up to 128 --IDK WHY that number stuck in my head??-- "peripheral" devices using the new USB ports..." I thought "WHOA!! Now HOW could one have so MANY "devices" hooked-up to ONE computer???" LOL! Now, I know... ; )

Again, I apologize for my "Newbness" on this situation but I AM trying to learn this. I also appreciate all of the time and effort that you all have put into helping me suss this whole thing out. : ) Thank you again, of course, in advance, for ANY assistance that you can still lend to this scenario. : ) –EB

PS Second apologies for the WOT above.:)

Ok, I don't know why you would go and partition a hdd in such a way but you may have your reasons.

In first place Disk Manager is what the name says, a tool to manage Disks Drives. Windows OSs have a bunch of tools like Task Scheduler, MsConfig, etc; for specific task for your PC. It's pretty simple and won't commit automatically. You can set the stuff you want and then commit all changes. Beware of merging partitions as you will lose DATA.

When you plug a drive doesn't matter if it's externally, or internally, to make use of it two conditions must be met

1.- The drive must have a compatible file system. In other words it must be Fat, NTFS, etc; for Windows

2.- A mounting point. Traditionally in Windows OSs you go and assign a drive letter to the partition, so then you con look it up at "My Pc". But there is another way, just like in Linux you can set a mounting point inside another drive and it will look like a folder. This folder will contain it's own storage space and it's not additive to the drive containing this "folder mount point".

To do this you will connect the drive in the fashion you like, then open "Start Menu" type Administrative tools it should open a folder containing a bunch of shorcuts, open Device manager -> Storage -> Disk Manager. There you can check your drive and right click it to assign a new mount point. Give it a valid path to a NTFS folder, make a new one, and that's it.

It's weird if you haven't used other than Windows, but it's standard in Unix like systems.

If you haven't already, go to the Disk Management control panel applet.

• If you are on Windows 10, the easiest way will be to click on the
  Windows logo icon on the lower left, then start typing "Disk
  Management".


• On Windows 7, you can click on the Windows logo icon, go to Control
  Panel, then Administrative Tools, then Disk Management.


• 
  This also may be helpful.

Once there, the visual way Windows shows things may help.

On the bottom half, each large horizontal band (headered by "Disk 0") is an entire disk.

Rectangles to the right of the "Disk 0", "Disk 1" are partitions.

Windows calls these rectangles "volumes". A single disk can contain more than one partition and therefore more than one volume. (The reason why it's called a "volume" is that it's possible for two partitions on separate physical disks to be a single volume. Don't worry about that now.)

You can assign a volume a drive letter, or folder path. Doesn't matter what physical disk it's on, if it's a volume and shows up as a rectangle here, you can give it a drive letter or assign it to a folder path.

Also it's fine if a volume doesn't have a path or drive letter. You can't use it until you do, but you don't have to assign one immediately.

Windows automatically assigns a volume the C: drive letter based on what it considers a "system drive", you can't change this.

Anything else, you can assign a drive letter, assign a folder, or unassign each at will. Right click the rectangle and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths."

If you run out of letters you will have to use folders. Internally Windows can handle more than 26 mass storage devices. There are still only 25 letters (A:, B:, D:-Z:) you can assign them to.

In my experience, if I assign a drive letter, remove the drive, then later reconnect it, it remembers the drive letter. For SATA-connected disks that don't move, my experience is that since Windows XP, the drive assignments never change on their own. I have never tested with constant swapping of more than a couple devices.

Also, for more clarification, I am NOT 'talking" about "pen" or "thumb-drives" I am referring to actual, spinning, platter, USB HDD's. From Desktop (powered) to portable (USB powered). Does this matter or make a difference in ANY way??

A removeable drive is the same to Windows whether flash based or mechanical with a couple quirks relating to partitioning and using the FAT filesystem.

Mechanical drives consume significant power from the USB bus (especially when starting up) and connecting more than a few (or even 1 if the port is not USB 3.0) may cause problems with the USB port - you may get disconnects and errors stating devices are drawing too much power. If you really connect 27 drives to your system, you may experience this even with flash or SSD drives.