Two different drive letters with the same drive label (name)

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sirhawkeye

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Feb 11, 2014
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Can you have two drives (in a Windows system) with two different drive letters but the name name (say I labelled them both "Media1")?
Does this cause any issues for concern from a corruption standpoint or Windows getting confused? I know Windows itself uses drive letters mostly, but am not sure if the volumne/drive names ever come into play or not.

So for example, I have two drives: one called "E:\" and one called "M:\" plugged in but both name the name "Media1"?
 
Can you?
I believe so.

That is just the volume label.

Should you?
No.
Why would you do this?

The reason I need to do this is because when I travel, I don't take external SSDs with me usually. So, when working on my desktop, my photos are stored on a an external drive called "Media1" which is assigned to the drive letter M. On my laptop, I have an internal drive called "M" also called Media1, BUT the external SSD (that I use mostly on the desktop) is referenced as "D" when plugged into the laptop (since the laptop already has an internal drive M:). I have to do this for consistency so Adobe Lightroom works properly (if the drive letter changes, the LIghtroom complains and I have to remap all the files/folders to the new drive letter each time it changes so I do this for consistency. I keep the same drive label for both drives so that to Lightroom, it cannot tell the difference, if this makes sense, as I don't know if Lightroom uses the drive letter and/or the drive label to reference files in its database. I do know that the drive letter is some how referencd, but I think on Mac computers at least, it uses the label/name of the drive since Apple doesn't use drive letters).
 
The reason I need to do this is because when I travel, I don't take external SSDs with me usually. So, when working on my desktop, my photos are stored on a an external drive called "Media1" which is assigned to the drive letter M. On my laptop, I have an internal drive called "M" also called Media1, BUT the external SSD (that I use mostly on the desktop) is referenced as "D" when plugged into the laptop (since the laptop already has an internal drive M:). I have to do this for consistency so Adobe Lightroom works properly (if the drive letter changes, the LIghtroom complains and I have to remap all the files/folders to the new drive letter each time it changes so I do this for consistency. I keep the same drive label for both drives so that to Lightroom, it cannot tell the difference, if this makes sense, as I don't know if Lightroom uses the drive letter and/or the drive label to reference files in its database. I do know that the drive letter is some how referencd, but I think on Mac computers at least, it uses the label/name of the drive since Apple doesn't use drive letters).
drive label isnt used in lightroom, but windows uses it for mapping drive letter on external devices
drive letters are used in lightroom
 
Can you have two drives (in a Windows system) with two different drive letters but the name name (say I labelled them both "Media1")?
Does this cause any issues for concern from a corruption standpoint or Windows getting confused? I know Windows itself uses drive letters mostly, but am not sure if the volumne/drive names ever come into play or not.

So for example, I have two drives: one called "E:\" and one called "M:\" plugged in but both name the name "Media1"?
This isn't really a 'solution' but I figure I'd share my story here in case anyone stumbles upon this thread in the future:

I spent *4 YEARS* struggling with Windows Explorer search—every search returned "No items match your search." It turned out I had two drives with the same label after upgrading: years prior, I cloned my old drive to a new SSD and left the original HDD plugged in (disabled in Disk Management). Eventually, the old drive's letter reappeared, and Windows indexing got confused by the duplicate labels. Removing the drive letter from the old drive resolved the issue.


TL;DR: Windows search can be confused by duplicate drive labels, even if the drive letters are different.
 
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