What Happened to the A: and B: Drives in Windows?

What's the deal with the A: and B: drives? Why doesn't Windows assign them as drive letters?

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introducing the Common Questions
0:45 - The Reason For A: and B:
3:12 - What About Linux?
5:23 - What About Mac?
5:58 - Fun Fact: Mounting Drives as Paths in Windows

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

#Windows #Computers #Tech #ThioJoe

[rewindd]

respect for him just answering the question up front instead of holding suspense through the whole video

[MichaelSmith-onig]

As a musician I never questioned C being the root.

[Keikyu-]

There is also an additional reason for reserved A and B. Compatibility again. Some very old applications will determine your drive type just by check the drive letter. Some old installer simply won't let you install on A or B because "they are floppy".

[electricerger]

Hi first time viewer here.
1) I very much appreciate your straightforward answer. You don't string us along for the content hours, you let the natural complexity and curiosity do that. Good work.
2) I'm glad you answered this. I've never really thought about that naming scheme (mostly just because I'm too concerned with what happens to the 27th drive you'd mount), but this really got me thinking.

[weatherdynamics]

I love how the floppy drive still gets assigned to A even on Windows 10.

[wumwum]

The Linux file managers usually Mount drives to /media/<user> or /run/media/<user>.

/mnt is intended for drives manually mounted by the command line

And the file managers also usually list mounted drives on the sidebar, so it shouldn't be confusing for the user because they don't have to know the path at all when using the GUI file manager !

[Phlegethon]

Kinda crazy that A drive now needs to be explained

[radkovicbe]

I remember A and B drives, so I never even questioned this. But I’m in my 30s. As a teacher I had a student ask me this question, and I used this video to explain it much better than I could. Thank you for such a clear and succinct explanation.

[teytreet]

When you already know the reason because you're old enough to use the A: drives.... :'(

[olandir]

Another reason to mount to folders instead of letters in windows is that every time you plug in the same device it will get assigned to the correct path instead of with drive letters where it's highly likely you could get a different letter depending on how many usb drives you have in at any given point

[ptravel]

Excellent video! I've been working with Microsoft DOS/Windows since the 1980s and I never knew about mounting drives using a path instead of a drive letter until I watched this. I've recently started working in Linux and your explanation of mount points, as well as the function of the mysterious mnt folder, is the clearest I've come across. Well done!

[stephenlee]

Hi, I think the bit you missed on A: & B: was on older machines with only 1 Floppy drive, the same drive was normally given both A: & B: not just A:, so you could copy from A: to B:, with lots of swapping of discs.

[Cetega]

The fact that this is even a question that needs answering makes me feel incredibly old.

[gligoradrian]

You have more storage capacity than my entire informatics lab at school.

[TheOPtmal]

A couple of corrections:

1. Modern Linux file managers usually don't show you the root folder, unless you specifically instruct them to. They usually just show you the attached drives in the sidebar like in Windows or Mac, and you're usually never manually mounting anything.

2. That is a very old version of Ubuntu. A better representation of modern Linux would be the latest version of Fedora, as Canonical (the developers of Ubuntu) have largely stopped caring about the desktop space, and even the latest versions of Ubuntu are complete dinosaurs.

[ericniewoehner]

Nice presentation. Using virtual filesystem mounts is a critical aspect of cloud server management. Cloud servers are usually leased with the C Drive being as minimal as possible, with programs and data off-loaded onto the Storage Area Network. So the mounts establish "folders" that point to the SAN. This is very efficient in Linux, but is a bit kinky in Windows because of the software development culture of Windows. You come across applications all the time that have hardcoded "C:\Program Files".

[isaacbailey]

I like how you answered the title question immediately, it made me actually *want* to keep watching for the additional info.

[gligoradrian]

Why is the main drive letter C?
Because Windows was written in C. To pay respects.

One thing that makes some things very easy to use in Linux (and other unix) compared to windows is that the user directory is located in the same place (except if the sysadmin wants to do some flashy stuff) regardless of if the user directory is on the main drive, on a secondary drive or even on a network drive. Usually it is /home/username and the user does not need to know which of those setups it is, it works the same way regardless. While it may feel odd at first, it has a lot of benefits that makes life easier.

[padcom]

A quick side note: nowadays it is the /media/<username>/ for things like USB drives. And yeah, the comparison with C:\Mounted is spot on!