Oddball Flash Drive problem

  • Thread starter Duke
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Duke

Duke

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OK, gang, I need quick help here. We just migrated from Win2kPro to WinXP at work, on new computers.

I have a year-old USB flash drive full of files I need to get onto the new computer (I've worked around this issue, but the fundamental problem remains).

The problem is that the flash drive will not mount on my computer. If I put is in, it never appears as a usable volume. If I run the "Removable Drives" troubleshooter, it identifies it as a generic USB volume, with the correct name, and says there is nothing wrong with it. In the system tray it shows up, and clicking the icon for removable drives shows me I can stop it. However, it will not show up as a mounted volume in any dialog box or window.

It mounts and operates perfectly normally on anybody else's identical computer. Other people's flash drives mount and operate perfectly normally on my computer. But MY flash drive will not mount on MY computer.

I tried renaming the volume name when I had it up on somebody else's computer. It renamed fine, but still won't mount here.

WTF?! Is there any way I can force it to reformat the flash drive so I can fix this? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.
 
Odd... I've never had that happen to me(I have had an unknown device error due to my own stupidity of swapping some USB and Firewire connections). Um, since it obviously works on other people's computers, I'd recommend backing up the files first and then reformat it using the XP Format tool. I'm not even 100% sure if that will fix it though...

Good luck with it.
 
Just wondering but did you try doing... ( hope this isn't confusing :grumpy: )

Update drivers. (look at properties)


to the areas highlighted below


or scan for changes


I know these are duplicate methods but I've had a jump drive where it's not recognized and I do the above and it works. (Note: your device manager might look a little different)

Anyway, good luck. 👍
 
Thanks for the screen shots, but in fact I had already tried that. It told me the drivers were current, including for the generic device. It also doesn'tcome up with any hardware issues when I scan changes.

Thanks for the advice - I guess I'll just have to reformat it and see what happens.
 
If you know which drive letter it should be, you could try accessing it directly via windows explorer? A lame sugg. but all i can think of.
 
Well, just as an update: I never solved the problem.

I tried renaming and reformatting the flash drive on a different machine, I tried setting different settings for the "Always Do" dialog on how to handle multiple file types, etc.; I tried all the drivers and hardware updater/troubleshooters, etc. and nothing worked.

Eventually I traded the flash drive to somebody else for a different one, since the issue was only with my somputer.
 
Do other flash drives work on your computer?

Maybe it's a service that hasn't been started.
 
Yup. Other people's flash drives work on my computer. My flash drive works on other people's computers. But my flash drive does not work on my computer.
:mad:
But, as I said, I solved the problem by trading my drive with someone else.
 
If this ever happens again in the future you could try accessing the drive through a different Explorer than Windows Explorer (e.g. Nero Burning ROM).
 

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