The main computer is C and my current hard drive is D, if I get a secondary hard drive will it fluctuate between being considered D or E depending on if my first hard drive is plugged in or not? I’m intending on a setup that will involve shortcuts on my PC to different hard drive paths, so I need them to remain consistent
You assign a letter, and the drive will remember it. You can change it at any time using the “disk management” tool in Windows.
If a drive is already connected using that letter when you plug it in, you’d need to go to disk management to change the letter to make it visible again in file explorer.