ASSIGN ASSIGN
Name
assign - assigns a drive letter to a different drive
Syntax
assign x y
Description
The assign command lets you read and write files on drives
other than A and B for applications that use only those two
drives.
In the above syntax line, x is the drive that MS-DOS
currently reads and writes to, and y is the new drive that
you want MS-DOS to read and write to.
Remember not to enter a colon after the drive letters x and
y.
Examples
To reset all drives back to their original assignments,
enter assign. Remember, though, you cannot assign a drive
if it is being used by another program, and you cannot
assign an undefined drive.
To ensure compatibility with future versions of MS-DOS, you
should use subst instead of assign. The following commands,
therefore, are equivalent:
assign a = c
is equivalent to
subst a: c:\
As a second example, the following command enables you to
use drives other than A and B, such as a hard disk drive, C:
assign a=c b=c
All references to drives A and B would then go to drive C.
Notes
Because assign hides the true device type from commands that
require actual drive information, you should not use this
command with backup or print or during normal use of MS-DOS.
Also note that two other commands, format and diskcopy,
ignore drive reassignments.
assign is an external command.
ASSIGN (printed 8/16/89) ASSIGN