Computer Hope

Hardware => Hardware => Topic started by: davidcio on June 02, 2008, 06:20:56 PM

Title: How can I combine two or more USB hard drives into 1 virtual hard drive.
Post by: davidcio on June 02, 2008, 06:20:56 PM

I'm using Microsoft's XP and have used all of my hard drive letters.  Can I combine two or more of my external USB hard drives into 1 virtual drive that XP will recognize as only 1 very large drive.  I know I should probably switch to a server, but I have slowly acquired 28 hard drives of different sizes ( 250 GB to 1 TB) over the years as I accumulated more and more data for my job.  The way I use them now is to switch them in and out as I need the data.

Title: Re: How can I combine two or more USB hard drives into 1 virtual hard drive.
Post by: dahlarbear on June 02, 2008, 10:52:15 PM

Instead of assigning drive letters to disk volumes you could mount some of them onto empty directories in an existing NTFS file system.  This would free up drive letters for other uses. 

Reference How to create and use NTFS mounted drives in Windows XP and in Windows Server 2003 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307889)

Title: Re: How can I combine two or more USB hard drives into 1 virtual hard drive.
Post by: davidcio on June 03, 2008, 03:13:38 PM

Thanks, this solution is much simpler then I thought it would be, and works great