Possible: A VLC Generic / Universal Drive Playlist?

Chim · 2017-05-29T14:32:35.000Z

I have a conundrum. In recent times, no longer having a Cassette Player to play my Mt. Everest of cassettes, I embarked on recreating that music onto my Flash Drive via the download of YouTubes.

My new Flash Drive stash is now in place and then some. Enter stage right the problem. For some of the groups of music that I have organized by albums, I went ahead and created VLC Media Player playlists so as to play the songs automatically and in the order that I had them on my cassettes without manual intervention. That works BUT …

My dread has come true. My YouTubes and corresponding playlists were saved on my main Flash Drive with the designation of J:Drive on my MAIN computer. However, the other day, that computer’s power supply went kaput. I changed over to my backup computer, which I am using at this instant. As I had wondered and dreaded … that same Flash Drive — on my backup computer gets assigned the designation of E:Drive. Consequently, my playlists get rendered useless because the paths are created for J:Drive and not E:Drive.

Is there any way of making generic / universal playlists so that my VLC Media Player playlists work on any computer regardless of what Drive designation my Flash Drive gets assigned?

I’ve seen / read about Flash Drive designation-changing apps. I don’t know how safe / recommendable those are. Insight?

mchain · 2017-05-29T18:38:45.000Z

Hi Chim,

I’d first make copies of all files you wish to safeguard and put them in at least two different locations.
Open compmgmt.msc in the Run box and select your flash drive. Run this as administrator.

Right-click flash drive E: and select change to desired drive path/letter. See attachment below.

Chim · 2017-05-29T20:21:38.000Z

First of all, I AM covered as far as backups of my stuff. I have my stuff on my Main Flash Drive as well as on 3 backup Flash Drives and on DVDs. (I think 4 DVDs were required to cover all my stuff in different categories.)

Anyway — there’s Good News … AND there’s Bad News.

The good news is that I WAS able to successfully change the Drive designation on one of my backup Flash Drives. YAY!

The bad news is that the VLC playlist still does not work. I attached the error that I get.

Chim · 2017-05-29T20:31:25.000Z

I don’t know if the VLC playlist function can somehow determine some difference between the different Flash Drives and tell when it is not the original physical Flash Drive on which the music files and the playlist were saved and it won’t allow the playlist to work unless it’s the absolute original physical Flash Drive … not just any Flash Drive with the original’s Drive designation.

Or … here’s another possibility. On my original / main Flash Drive, the Videos folder on which the music files and the playlists are saved — it is the genuine official fancy CUSTOM Videos folder created by the PortableApps.com platform. The Videos folder on that backup Flash Drive on which I finished conducting my experiment — it is just a “Videos” folder that I created. Maybe the VLC playlist function can tell a difference between those 2 types of “Videos” folders. I don’t know.

Chim · 2017-05-30T00:34:37.000Z

I just found the VideoLAN forums. I’ll go ask over there … just as soon as I come up with a password and join. Grrrrrrr! I hate hate hate dealing with having to create a password for yet another site.

Thanks for the info, mchain. That can actually come in handy in other situations.

mchain · 2017-05-30T06:03:23.000Z

You are welcome.

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