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In Windows you have a C: drive. The first things labeled beyond that seems to be extra stuff. So my DVD drive is D: and if you put in a USB stick it becomes F:. And then some people also have A: and B:. But then, what and where are G: through Z: drives for?

  1. Is it possible to connect so many things to a computer to make them all in use? Or more than them?

    Would it give a BSOD? Or would this slow down the system somehow? Or what would happen?

  2. What if I want to connect even more drives to the computer? Because with the hard drive limits it's more efficient to buy more drives than to buy a single drive with a lot of capacity.

  3. Is it possible to create drive letters like 0: through Z: or AA: through ZZ:?

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    I vaguely recall that there used to be the ability to create drives AA:, BB:, etc. But that was probably back on DOS or Windows 3. (Of course, the real question is why there are drive letters at all. But that's probably mostly because the guys at Seattle Computing didn't know UNIX.) – Daniel R Hicks Apr 1 '12 at 13:25
  • In addition to the possibility of multiple internal or external drives, network shares can also be mapped to drive letters. – Harry Johnston Apr 2 '12 at 0:13
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    @DanH: The drive letters are there because early MS-DOS had only drives; directories were added much later. (As for UNIX – MS-DOS actually had a config option for UNIX-style command line options because so many Microsoft developers were used to them in Xenix.) See this post. – user1686 Apr 6 '12 at 12:53
  • I'm well aware of PC-DOS, et al. I once spent $4K for a brand spanking new PC-1. And, as I indicated in my comment, PC/MS-DOS was the invention of Seattle Computing, not Microsoft. – Daniel R Hicks Apr 6 '12 at 15:15
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  1. Yes.

  2. You'd have to use NTFS junction mounts in order to graft the new volume to an existing filesystem, or refer to them via their UNC path.

  3. No. Only single letter drives are allowed.

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    #3 is incorrect; [: or 0: are accepted by DefineDosDevice(). You'll just have troubles actually accessing files in them, but those are application bugs. – user1686 Apr 1 '12 at 13:33
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    Seems like two drives one of our valued associates would like, reverse smileys... :) – Tamara Wijsman Apr 1 '12 at 16:05
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  1. It is definitely possible to plug in that many (I commonly get up to K) and I have seen more on some other systems. It will probably cause some amount of overhead, but it will be constant in terms of the devices that are plugged in (having 3 USBs takes 50% more than 2 USBs but neither takes much).
  2. UNC path is the only way I know of to get to them.
  3. For some reason, that limitation exists in windows (all versions).
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  1. Yes you can also use partitioning to organise the data better, and end up with all of them used.

    No it did not slow the computer down, although I avoided using both letters L&I and Q&O at the same time, because they can look similar , I have almost put A-Z to use, and it did not slow the computer.

  2. With Windows 7 you can now use the A & B drives for a normal drive, it doesn't have to be a floppy anymore. If you use all that, then you have to give up something to get something.

  3. No they don't give us an AA Or 0-9 after you run out of letters, it ends with Z, which isn't any more foreward looking than IP4 or all the "addressing issues" they have had with hard drive sizes.

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