Flash Drive not recognized

[Arazr]

I have used many USB products, and I know that Windows XP is supposed to recognize them automatically and install the drivers for the product. Today I got a new USB flash drive, plugged it in, and nothing happened. I plugged it into another computer with windows xp and it worked fine. Why did my first computer not recognize it and how do I fix that error??? Thanks....

 

[Rick]

Is it possible you're plugging this drive into a USB hub?

Try plugging it in directly to one of the USB ports in the back of your computer.

Drivers shouldn't be an issue as XP uses a generic USB mass storage driver which works with pretty much all thumb drive (and most external hard drive) chipsets.

If there's nothing important on the thumb drive, you can try repartitioning and formatting the drive. It doesn't make sense it would work in one Windows XP box and not the other, but I've seen it happen.

Start > Run > diskmgmt.msc

CAUTION: Do not alter any other drives. ONLY your thumb drive!
Find your thumb drive in the lower pane of the window, right click on the colored partition blocks and triple check to make sure it is your thumb drive before continuing. Proceed to delete your thumb drive's partition(s).

Right click in the empty space of your thumb drive and create a new partition. Right click and format it in FAT or FAT32. It should work.

And if you don't see your thumb drive listed, then something is wrong at the driver/hardware level.

 

[Ididmyc600]

I have used many USB products, and I know that Windows XP is supposed to recognize them automatically and install the drivers for the product. Today I got a new USB flash drive, plugged it in, and nothing happened. I plugged it into another computer with windows xp and it worked fine. Why did my first computer not recognize it and how do I fix that error??? Thanks....

I have noticed a similar post elsewhere in the group
https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic55187.html
and the answer was...

Go into Device manager and remove all items related to USB such as Root Hub and USB controller, do this by right clicking each item and choosing uninstall,

Once all done, reboot and let Windows find the USB items, then try your USB stick.

Incidentally if you see anything with a Yellow Exclamation mark then remove that as well it might be the USB stick after it had failed install, and as such wont be redetected when plugged in.

Might work for you as well.

 

[Arazr]

Is there any possibility that I will loose information on my other usb external devices when uninstalling the driver for them? I have a Sd card reader, and a chip reader (its a business computer and needs the chip reader). These devices are far more important then my flash drive for what I do. (Plus I can just use my other computer for data storage)

 

[Rick]

Is there any possibility that I will loose information on my other usb external devices when uninstalling the driver for them? I have a Sd card reader, and a chip reader (its a business computer and needs the chip reader). These devices are far more important then my flash drive for what I do. (Plus I can just use my other computer for data storage)

No, uninstalling drivers will not affect your information. It does affect how your computer interacts with these devices though and while it should never delete or alter your data, unplugging flash drives with important data certainly won't hurt. If it puts your mind at ease, by all means....

 

[Webfairy]

Flash drive still missing, DVD drive restored

My thinkpad laptop lost both it's DVD drive and internal SD card reader when I installed ITunes.

I recovered use of my DVD drive following this post:

club.cdfreaks.com/f3/installing-itunes-disabled-dvd-cd-drive-help-222027/
but the SD card reader is still out.

Are there some sort of upper and lower register filters on the SD card registry values as well?