Hd with no automatic letter designation

[pegasis]

Hello

I have a hard drive that I use for cloning, and lately when i install it as a spare drive to be cloned, the drive/letter does not show up.

I have to go into computer management, disk management and assign it a letter and it will show up.

This seems to only last one time, and the next time i use is for cloning the windows 8.1 native OS does not see the drive/letter again

what is causing this, and how can I fix it permanently?

 

[lakedude]

Why are you Cloning the OS? If you are backing something up maybe you should be making an Image instead of Cloning? When you make a new partition you are typically given the option to assign a drive letter, or not. I don't know what happens if because of a clone 2 drive letters are the same...

 

[pegasis]

I like cloning, works fine

the cloning is not the issue, I have been cloning my drive once a week for years.
never an issue
The issue is the drive letter not being assigned, and the drive NOT being recognized

 

[Puffnstuff]

If a drive is not mounted no system will recognize it which is why you have to mount it in computer management. If you don't change the assigned letter it will show up the next time you connect it.

 

[pegasis]

I don't change the assigned letter, but it does not show up.

Sounds like it is not being mounted automatically by windows?

how can I fix this?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Is this a clone of a "live" system disc? And you want both of them to be online in the OS at the same time? That's a no-no, because the filesystem signatures are identical. That's probably why it's not auto-mounted the cloned drive.

What are you trying to accomplish, here? What you're doing, is not the proper way to go about this...

Maybe get a motherboard that supports RAID-1 (mirroring)?

 

[pegasis]

The 2 drives are no being used in the same computer at the same time.

The clone is just that, a clone.

I have been cloning drives for years, and I DON'T WANT RAID!!

I clone my drives

 

[Ketchup]

I haven't used 8(.1) much outside of a VM, but I do seem to remember running into that same thing. I just manually mount it and move along.