USB Flash Disk not appearing in Explorer

How do I get the drive letter to Stick

Hi I was looking for a solution like the one you mention here. I am using a Dell D600 laptop and a Dell c610 laptop with Windows XP, SP2. I tried assigning or changing the drive letter for one of my usb flash drives to "x", but but this does not stick with all of my usb flash drives. It will only return to the drive letter I assinged originally for that specific device. For any other device it tries to grab the next available drive letter. Does anyone know if there is a way to permanently assign a drive letter to a usb device? :rolleyes:

patio said:
I inadvertantly discovered a fix for this without knowing why so i can't take credit for it.
When i got my first stick and plugged it in i went to My Computer/Manage/Disk Management and assigned it a letter at the end of the food chain.
As i have multiple drives/partitions depending on which OS i boot to i decided on "x".
Faultlessly no matter how many system/hardware etc. changes i have made whenever i plug in the stick it shows up properly on the system as "x".

Not sure why this works but i'm happy with it.

patio. :cool:
Click to expand...
 
Explorer XP works Great!

I tried this for my Dell c610 and D600 laptops and it works great for viewing any USB flash drive I insert into my laptops. Thanks a lot :grinthumb !


NJSteve52 said:
Hello all.... there is a file called "ExplorerXP" that can be found on the site, http://www.g4tv.com. This file (freeware) runs as an enhanced windows explorer and recognizes USB drives (such as the SanDisk drives) correctly. One can hotswap and this small utility (which looks like windows explorer) will recognize USB drives without the silly "portable media" assignment under the control panel that Windows XP does in windows explorer. When recognized like this, one does not have full access. Also, I think that drive letter assignment is not an issue as it seems to be with windows explorer in XP (especially with SP2 installed). Hope this helps....
Click to expand...
 
USB mass storage not visible

hi,

my variant on the problem is that when I plug the mass storage device in it does come up under the device mananger, but NOT the disk manager or any where else.

so i cant format it or assign it a drive letter. I even tried partition magic, but it wont even start with the device pluged into the computer.

joseph
 
If it's not appearing in Disk Management at all, it's probably not a partition issue.

Maybe too little power available for the stick?

I once asked about this for my Kingston DataTraveler Elite memory stick and got the following reply:
Thank you for your interest in Kingston's USB DataTravelers. Kingston's USB
DataTravelers power consumption is at the standard spec. for USB storage -
3.3v (which is usually higher than some other USB peripherals, like
printers and scanners, which have their own power supply).

A direct connection of the USB DataTraveler to your computer will not
require any extra power - your system will supply all the necessary power.
However, if using a USB hub you will most likely require extra power. Due
to variations in Hub designs, it is hard to say which will and which will
not require external power. Because of this uncertainty, and USB 2.0's
moderate power consumption, when using a USB hub Kingston recommends the
use of an externally powered USB hub. A lack of power (like in a
non-powered USB hub) can cause data corruption while reading or writing to
the DataTraveler.
Click to expand...


Anyhow, here's one USB storage device partition tool:
Windows-based Format Utility for HP Drive Key or DiskOnKey USB Device

It works with other than HP's products, too.
 
power may be an issue, I looked at the power info avail in the device manager and it is only drawing 10mA (while my wireless keyboard and mouse are drawing 100). since it is actually a HDD 10mA seems way to low.
thanks,
joseph
 
Problem Resolved:fixed My Usb Mobile Hard Drive!!!

After plugging in my usb hard drive into my brothers computer, it randomly went missing from windows explorer and then i plugged it back into my computer that i had used it on many times before and it was missing there too.

The Solution:
I downloaded a program called partition magic from http://www.soft32.com/download-Partition_Magic-151-5.html

[EDIT]: NB this is only the demo version so to use it you either need to buy the full version or if you're cheapskate, find a crack from somewhere. Then i discovered that my usb drive was displayed as hidden so i right clicked the drive and selected unhide and then apply. The system then rebooted and my drive was visible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I have modified your link to a crack. We do not promote the use or distribution of warez on this site - and a crack for a demo program is clearly that.
 
Hi, i've also the problem (xp sp2) and i make this for the moment:
download a new manager files (AB Commander) ;
ctrl+alt+del and i closed the process explorer.exe;
and with ab commander now there is no problem...
Is a bug of explorer i think, but only with sp2 because with sp1 i have not problem.

ciao
 
New flash Drive problem ive never heard of.

:knock: ok, yesterday the computer i ws using my flash drive on crashed. The computer would not boot up for some time after the fact. Later I tried to use myy flash drive on another computer only to find that somehow it now looks like a disk drive. If I click on the explorer label I am told to insert a disk into the flash drive. It used to call the drive by its brand now it just says removable drive. I cannot format it with windows cause like a floppy drive there is no memory. So now I have a 2 gb flash drive with no memory and wants a disk inserted into it. Ive tried to format it under disk managment in the control panel but thats no good cause you dont get a format option on disk drives unless there is a data disk loaded into it. I would take it back but im kinda stuck, deployed to the middle a Bagdad right now. not to many Best Buys around here. :knock:
 
usb device not appearing in explorer but not only...

Hi to all,
I registered specifically to answer this post and maybe have a complete solution. As you certainly suppose, I encountred the same problem as you but not only...
When plugging in my usb devices, no letter appears in the explorer but a letter is assigned in the de disk manager. On top of this, when I want to map a network drive, I have the same problem. All is working fine if I access my usb device or network drive by entering the letter in the address bar though.

Now I think I have a partial solution... I recently had another problem concerning the I.E. "open in a new window" function. This was the result of an unregistration of some dlls from I.E. With some more researches I found that a fix existed for the network mapping problem. It could have been solved by the application of a specific patch concerning the shell32.dll on WXP and wshel32.dll on W2003 or the latest SP from microsoft. But all this is happening on my work machine. I only have limited admin rights and was not allowed to install specific applications other than the authorized ones.

The facts now... I then had the idea to unregister and reregister the concerned dll and to reboot. The commands are "regsvr32 /u shell32.dll" to unregister and "regsvr32 shell32.dll"... to reregister.

The effects are that when mapping a network drive or connecting a usb drive, it does not appear in the already opened explorer(s) but by starting new instances I now see the affected letters!!! No need for extra reboots!!! Hurrray!!!!

What I would like and I think that someone could help is to get the current opened explorers to be updated immediately like in the situation I knew before the problem.

I think that this could be related to dependencies concerning shell32.dll...

If someone finds the somution before me, please be so kind to advice...

Hoping this helps!
Thx in advance.
 
USB Drive not mapped in Explorer

Here is what happened to me.

Pluged in the USB drive - seemed to load fine. No apparent drive assigned in explorer. I Opened the 'remove drive' utility and selected the checkbox that shows the drive information - it showed that it was mapped to drive F:\ which was already mapped to a network drive on my system. Sure enough - it over-rode the network drive mapping - using that drive in explorer wrote to the USB device.

If I remove the USB drive, remap the network drive to a letter other than F:\ and rebooted, at that point the USB drive did show up in explorer as drive F:\.

I suspect the USB driver is searching the list of installed local drives (physical drives?) and picking the next available drive letter without any concern about network mappings.

USB drive works fine in Win2000, problem appears only in XP as far as I can tell.
 
For what it is worth I have always had success with the following way of dealing with the various USB drives I own/owned. (WIN2K,XP)

When first installed, windows puts these drives next to or in the midst of your current Drive arrangement (between C:\ and whatever the last drive is E,F etc.) The default is to pack them together, usually conflicting with the existing CDrom's(thus no drive letter listing immediately in Explorer)

In Disk Manager, I place the CDrom's near the end of the alphabet R:\ and higher.
Then change newly installed Usb's etc in the middle L:\ - P:\
After a change and reboot I have not had any issues with them.
 
new solution(hoped work)

Hi everybody,
I'm new in this forum, I know the topic mybe has expired, but I hope my information still able to help someone there.
Like all of You, I also facing the same problem with my usb drive.
After a painfull search of solution(including this forum) I finally found some great solution.
It seems that the problrm occured after I install daemon tool 4.03 which automatically install secdrv.sys, sptd.sys ans sptdXXXX.sys (XXX is a number) to c:\windows\system32\drivers.
So what I do is just delete these three files, and reboot system, and then
HORRRRAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY..............my usb drive works just fine again.
Hope this can help
 
USB HardDisk Works But Does NOT Appear in Explorer!

Ok, here is my problem...

I have a WesternDigital 200GB IDE (divided in two NTFS partitions) in a USB enclosure.

It works fine on other PCs, but when i plug it on my laptop (Vaio OS:XP-MCE),
i hear the "usb plug sound", but nothing is shown in the explorer.

I Go to Administrative Tools->Computer Management->Disk Managenent and
voila! the disk is shown there but has no letter assigned, so i assign a letter for it. Then I Open the Explorer again but Still nothing there!!!
I try to access the disk through the Disk Management and i Have access ONLY from there!!! Still nothing in the explorer.

When i disconect and reconnect the USB Disk, i check again the Disk Management and the Disk Appears there but again with no assigned Letters!!
(i.e. the previous letter assignment i made before re-plug-in, are lost!!!)

Also, when i Try the Option: "Mount Disk in an Empty NTFS Folder", i always get the error message : "The path cannot be used for creating a drive path likely because the folder does not exist or is already a drive path to some other Volume." (nomatter where the empty forder might be).

At least i can have access on the Disk but with the hard way i just described (only through Disk Management), and i have to do the same procedure (letter assignment) each time i reconnect it to my laptop.

Any Help Tips are Wellcome, Thanks!
 
USB Drive pokin out properly

Hey,

I have got the exact same problem and have to access my drive exactly the same way. i have been doing research but still have found nothing. The worst part about my situation is a client brought their PC with the same problem and needs it fixed urgently. I will post again as soon as i figure something out.

There is a solution, i just wish i knew what the hell it was!!!
 
nio_7 said:
Ok, here is my problem...

I have a WesternDigital 200GB IDE (divided in two NTFS partitions) in a USB enclosure.

It works fine on other PCs, but when i plug it on my laptop (Vaio OS:XP-MCE),
i hear the "usb plug sound", but nothing is shown in the explorer.

I Go to Administrative Tools->Computer Management->Disk Managenent and
voila! the disk is shown there but has no letter assigned, so i assign a letter for it. Then I Open the Explorer again but Still nothing there!!!
I try to access the disk through the Disk Management and i Have access ONLY from there!!! Still nothing in the explorer.

When i disconect and reconnect the USB Disk, i check again the Disk Management and the Disk Appears there but again with no assigned Letters!!
(i.e. the previous letter assignment i made before re-plug-in, are lost!!!)

Also, when i Try the Option: "Mount Disk in an Empty NTFS Folder", i always get the error message : "The path cannot be used for creating a drive path likely because the folder does not exist or is already a drive path to some other Volume." (nomatter where the empty forder might be).

At least i can have access on the Disk but with the hard way i just described (only through Disk Management), and i have to do the same procedure (letter assignment) each time i reconnect it to my laptop.

Any Help Tips are Wellcome, Thanks!
Click to expand...
From Disk management check the disk's file system, what does it say? Is it formatted, this is the first step. Also remember that your NTFS formatted flash drives and ATA drives in external USB enclosures will not appear at all in Win9x (and that's even with the driver installed).

The problem may be power related or possibly could be due to the drive letter conflict. This is a common problem in XP where removable storage devices are sometimes assigned the same drive letter. Disconnect all other removable devices and USB devices first then plug in one at a time and see if they are all detected and assigned drive letters. If any are assigned the same letter then change the drive letter from the logical disk manager to the last latter and work backwards. Anything that is not detected at all may have power issues if it is an external HDD, or may need formatting.

Generally an external HDD with power issues will sound the bell and may cause a partial detection but nothing will appear in windows explorer. If you have device manager open when you're plugging in devices you may see the list jump and the mass storage device appear but no drive. If this occurs you'll need to either use a Y cable (there may have been one with the enclosure - these are not needed for flash drives) or you may need an external powered hub. I've found that on some systems there are less power issues with the rear USB ports than there are with the front. I'm not sure why this is, but it's worth a try.
 
Thanks for the answer! :)

Unfortunately, i didn't managed to fix it yet trying these steps.
I even deleted the partitions and performed a slow Format that took quite a long time, but all for nothing. The problem remains.
The odd thing, is that i have an older Vaio laptop and when i plug it on there, it recognizes it instantly and even pops up the "AutoPlay Window"!!! But on my newest Vaio, i have access only through Disk Management.

I come to believe that it may be a matter of compatibility (with the specific usb enlosure) due to advanced peripheral storage features of my new vaio (built in card reader, and a second removable multicard reader) that may perplex the whole thing. (I don't face any problems with usb flash memory sticks at all!)

So for now, i gave up on fixing this...
 
This is really weird!!!

After my last post, i never used this external drive since then.
I had it laying on the floor exposed to dust...
Today i picked it up from the floor, took it on my desk, pluged it in the #1 usb slot
of my laptop and voila!!!!!!! It started with "New Hardware is Found..." in tray, and ended like "Your New Hardware is installed and ready to use".
I double clicked "My Comouter" and i couldn't believe my eyes!!!!
The External Drive was there At Last!!!!
I don't know how!! The only thing i did was to plug it in!!! I was like "WTF!!!"
So i cleaned it from the dust and at last have it working properly!
 
Fix Found

Just an FYI, I thought I'd toss this in for those who find this thread. I had multiple users with very similar configurations and some had the issue and others didn't and it seemed to come and go at times. I'd been looking for a solution to this problem for about a month when I found this thread on another site:

(I can't post the link until I've posted 5 times. So here's the 1st time.)

It turns out (for me) that the Adobe Photo Downloader that comes with Photoshop Elements was BLOCKING the drive letters from mapping. Once I killed that process, the drives came up, NO problem. Apparently the problem process is different for some users, but apdproxy.exe was my problem process. Hope this helps.
 
Just an FYI, I thought I'd toss this in for those who find this thread. I had multiple users with very similar configurations and some had the issue and others didn't and it seemed to come and go at times. I'd been looking for a solution to this problem for about a month when I found this thread on another site:

(I can't post the link until I've posted 5 times. So here's the 2nd time.)

It turns out (for me) that the Adobe Photo Downloader that comes with Photoshop Elements was BLOCKING the drive letters from mapping. Once I killed that process, the drives came up, NO problem. Apparently the problem process is different for some users, but apdproxy.exe was my problem process. Hope this helps.
 
Just an FYI, I thought I'd toss this in for those who find this thread. I had multiple users with very similar configurations and some had the issue and others didn't and it seemed to come and go at times. I'd been looking for a solution to this problem for about a month when I found this thread on another site:

(I can't post the link until I've posted 5 times. So here's the 3rd time.)

It turns out (for me) that the Adobe Photo Downloader that comes with Photoshop Elements was BLOCKING the drive letters from mapping. Once I killed that process, the drives came up, NO problem. Apparently the problem process is different for some users, but apdproxy.exe was my problem process. Hope this helps.
 
Just an FYI, I thought I'd toss this in for those who find this thread. I had multiple users with very similar configurations and some had the issue and others didn't and it seemed to come and go at times. I'd been looking for a solution to this problem for about a month when I found this thread on another site:

(I can't post the link until I've posted 5 times. So here's the 4th time.)

It turns out (for me) that the Adobe Photo Downloader that comes with Photoshop Elements was BLOCKING the drive letters from mapping. Once I killed that process, the drives came up, NO problem. Apparently the problem process is different for some users, but apdproxy.exe was my problem process. Hope this helps.
 
Just an FYI, I thought I'd toss this in for those who find this thread. I had multiple users with very similar configurations and some had the issue and others didn't and it seemed to come and go at times. I'd been looking for a solution to this problem for about a month when I found this thread on another site:

(I can't post the link until I've posted 5 times. So here's the 5th time.)

It turns out (for me) that the Adobe Photo Downloader that comes with Photoshop Elements was BLOCKING the drive letters from mapping. Once I killed that process, the drives came up, NO problem. Apparently the problem process is different for some users, but apdproxy.exe was my problem process. Hope this helps.
 
Just an FYI, I thought I'd toss this in for those who find this thread. I had multiple users with very similar configurations and some had the issue and others didn't and it seemed to come and go at times. I'd been looking for a solution to this problem for about a month when I found this thread on another site:

http://www.tutorials-win.com/XPHardware/Flash-drive-327456/

It turns out (for me) that the Adobe Photo Downloader that comes with Photoshop Elements was BLOCKING the drive letters from mapping. Once I killed that process, the drives came up, NO problem. Apparently the problem process is different for some users, but apdproxy.exe was my problem process. Hope this helps.

Good Luck
 

Similar threads

T
Do I need to turn off "Secure Boot" in my BIOS to be able to boot up into a USB Linux Mint distro?
Replies
6
Views
818
Brickwizard
Brickwizard
Shawn Knight
Throwback tech: Taking a closer look at the original USB-to-PS/2 adapter
Replies
4
Views
103
TonyBony
T
Iddo12
USB 28 error on windows 10
Replies
8
Views
1K
Nelson28
N

Latest posts

Back