Hi all,
I've spent the past six hours trying to work out a USB Flash Drive mapping (and mount/dismount) problem in Windows 2003 (standard). I have been browsing around and found problems with conflicting mapped network drives, conflicting smart card readers etc... but my problem seems to be a bit different.

To be clear on what I've tried here's a list:
1. Close and re-open Windows Explorer
2. Uninstall and re-install all USB controller devices out of the device manager.
3. Re-assigned the drive letter for the removable device via disk manager (i.e. made the device drive Z)
4. updated bios to latest revision (from MAR 2002) I'm using a relatively older system 700MHz - AMD Duron system on a Gigabyte board.

Things I've checked
BIOS Settings: OK - USB support enabled
Drive mapping: NO Network drives are mapped
Just 1 HD (C) and a CDROM (D) and burner (E)

WHEN THERE ARE NO PROBLEMS MOUNTING AND DISMOUNTING THE FLASH DRIVE & MAPPING A DRIVE LETTER (F in my case) IN WIN EXPLORER:

1. When the flash drive is plugged in while the computer is booting
2. When the disk manager is open - must be the active window within the computer management console. (I can mount and dismount the drive time after time without any problems). As soon as I close the disk manager (and computer management console), that's when re-mounting the flash drive fails.

WHEN THERE ARE PROBLEMS:
1. After Windows is loaded, then unplugging the flash drive... Dismount is fine. Once re-inserting the flash drive, the mount fails at some point and the drive doesn't get mapped. NOTE: If I manually type in F:\ in the location bar, I can read and write to the drive, however it is never acknowledged by win explorer... It shows up as a blank with no name or description. Once unplugged, the drive fails to dismount and Windows gets hung up when trying to shut down/restart.

There is nothing wrong with this flash drive, as it works in other computers I've tried it on. In fact, I have no problem with this drive on my laptop which also has Win 2003 Standard installed (this laptop is also older @ 700MHz - Cyrix system). I checked all the settings in the "disk manager" and "Removable storage" and everything is the same...

I've done exausted all my steam!
Any ideas? Please let me know if I'm not clear with my problem.

Thanks,
Mike

Could it be a faulty USB-connection?
Surf to http://www.sourcequest.com/ and D/L their test-version of SourceUSB.
It should tell you what sort of USB-connection/s (if any) you have

Realblackstuff: Yep, USB connections are all good. That is a nice utility you pointed me to though.

I'm tending to lead to some sort of glitch in the OS. Again, if the disk manager is open, the flash drive works perfect. As soon as I close the disk manager, the flash drive doesn't mount. (yet is accessable by manually typing in it's drive letter).

Thanks much!
Mike

Install the MS Tweakui for XP. In there is a setting under "My Computer" to lock/open the rest of your drive-letters. They may be "locked" now.

PLEASE

hi i got a udisk 2.0 flash usb drive and i got a problem with it,
when i put it in the usb socket (2.0) it automatically adds media songs to the flash drive, what could i do to solve this or another help is how to delete the flash drive from the computer and re installing it

PLEASE HELP asap

I am a newcomer to TechSpot. I came her looking to a solution to a problem with my zip drive similar to the one that you addressed here. Tweakui was the answer to my problem. Thank You for your help.

Marvin Clapp

Hi
My guess is a service such as Plug and Play (not the UPNP plug and play) and/or Removable Storage may be disabled or not starting as they should. Tyr them set to auto and see if that helps any.

Thank You for your suggestion. I have just discovered that the problem was solvable by unlocking my G drive with tweakui. Nevertheless I appreciate your suggestion. As a newcomer to this forum, it is great to find people who are able to offer their assistance to computer problems.

Marvin Clapp

are you STOPPING the drive before unplugging it? Hotswapping is dangerous to the media.

I always stop it first although I notice when I look at its properties that it is set so that I don't have to stop it first.

I found out that this time, the problem was in Windows. The drive (G) was turned off. I used tweakui to turn it back on. It is working fine now. Thanks for the input.

Marvin Clapp

If you are running Windows Server 2003 and you are wondering why your USB Hard Drive is not seen by the Operating System after you plug it in, here is the answer to this common problem.
Windows Server has a tendency of attempting to assign a drive letter to the USB hard drive that is already in use. If you have plugged in a USB hard drive and checked in Device Manager to see if it is working correctly, and it is, the next step you need to take is to open DISK MANAGEMENT and look at the current disks. You will see that there is your standard C drive, your cd / dvd drive and then you may see your USB Drive but there is not a letter assigned to it. Go to that device that does not have a letter assigned to it, right click on it, and then click on CHANGE DRIVE LETTERS AND PATH. You will then see a place to change the drive letter. Simply change it to a letter that is not being used already (example C or D) and then CLICK OK. You problems are not resolved. The operating System will assign the letter of your choosing and from then on, you will have total and complete access to your External Hard Drive. Also, the operating system will indeed remember the letter that you assigned to it and when you unplug the hard drive and plug it back in, the system will assign it the same letter again.

None of this works for me, because the external USB drive does NOT show up in Disk Manager. Ever. The drive is detected fine in XP Pro SP2, however, so I know the drive and cable are good.

Windows Server 2003 Standard SP2. Device manager shows 5 "USB Root Hub"s, 4 "VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller"'s, and 1 "VIA USB Enhanced Host Controller" all of which are automatically re-installed by the OS if I remove them.

I haven't tried a BIOS update yet.

They don't include a serial no. with their trial, so you can dl it, but you can't install it... as of Oct 30, 2008 anyway...