XP SP2 can't open USB flash drive

[cheerful]

Windows XP SP2

All other USB devices (cam, scanner, mouse, keyboard) work fine. The USB flash drive is recognized by the OS. I can see the hard drive is installed and ready to use notification in the lower right corner.

Disk management will show the drive but w/o a letter. I can assign a letter manually and dir will list its content in command prompt. However, it won't show up in My Computer.

When I right click on the drive in Disk Manager and choose open, it will say the drive does not exist. Try again, this will actually open the drive, except that the address bar is blank. Then I can read from that folder correctly.

I've tried to remove all USB controller in device manager, reboot and let Windows re-detect/install them. Still the same problem.

What can I do to fix it?

Thanks!

 

[Ultiweap]

Try to test the USB flash drive on another computer first and if it do the same then you will need to format it. This happens normally when the drive has been put on another computer that was maybe wrongly unplugged.

Another test is for your PC this time try to plug in another flash drive and see if it do the same problem.

 

[cheerful]

The drive works fine on several other machines.

 

[Ultiweap]

Ok the problem seems to be with your PC then. What antivirus and firewall software do you use?

Some antivirus and firewall sometimes block the access to flash drive if they contain malicious files.

 

[cheerful]

Norton. Disabling Nortn has no effect.

No firewall software other than Windows' own firewall. The drive has one file (txt). And it works fine once I force Windows to open it in DM.