Vista: External drive named consistently

Click the Start orb and enter diskmgmt.msc to launch the Disk Management utility. Right-click the external drive and choose Change drive letter and paths from the pop-up menu. Click Remove, and confirm the worry-wart prompt that says some programs may not work correctly. Right-click and again choose Change drive letter and paths. Choose Add and add E: as the drive letter. Close Disk Management. The drive should now appear as E: every time.