# USB thumb drive shows in Explorer, but prompts to insert disk when clicked



## Emil Svensson (Jul 26, 2011)

Hello,

I'm having an issue with my USB thumb drive. I'm on my dad's computer; an old but serviceable thing running XP Home with SP3. The thumb drive is a Kingston DataTraveler 111, 16GB USB 3.0. It has worked perfectly on this computer and others for the past year (got it in January of 2013) and has not seen any abuse or accidents. It's been used quite a lot, but not excessively so (whatever that means) and certainly hasn't had to work any harder than could reasonably be expected of it, especially considering it's a quality brand.

The problem specifically: In the past two days or so, on two occasions, there's been the issue where you're "in" the drive file structure in Explorer and have been using the thumb drive for a bit, but suddenly the next double-click you do prompts you to insert a disk in DRIVE G: (the assigned letter on this computer). No huge thing: I just remove the thumb drive, reinsert it and am good to go again.

Just a short while ago, however, the problem took a turn for the worse. The same thing of Explorer (after me trying to open a file) suddenly saying there's no disk in drive G: and prompting me to insert one (you probably know the little window I'm talking about). Any text documents and what have you stay open however, and it's not until I try to save them that the problem shows itself.

This time, removing and reinserting the thumb drive didn't work as well, because what happened was that Windows after recognizing that something had been plugged into the USB port (which I suppose is "good" seeing as the last thumb drive that died on me didn't even elicit that much of a response from the system) didn't realize that it was the old familiar one, and instead started installing drivers for it, and they weren't even the drivers for DataTraveler111, but rather for "USB DISK 30X USB Device" which I've never heard of before. Anyway, once it was installed and done I tried to access it, but that had the same result as before the new driver install, which is that when I click "Removable drive (G" I get a prompt to insert a disk in drive G:. So basically the thumb drive shows up in Explorer as a drive but cannot be accessed because I'm prompted to insert a disk upon double-clicking it.

Tomorrow I'll have access to other computers and can then suss out whether the error is due to the thumb drive or the computer. But I was thinking that maybe there's an apparent solution even while stuck on this single system, and that's why I posted so soon.

Thank you very much in advance for all and any help!


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

This is caused by a failure of the drive. 
With the drive plugged in, first go to Start/Search and type *devmgmt.msc* right click the *devmgmt *results and *Run As Administrator*. In the Elevated *Device Manager*, expand* U*niversal *Se*rial *B*us Controllers. Are there any devices with Yellow flags? or is there an *Unknown Device*? If so, right click it and* Uninstall* it. Unplug the drive restart the computer. When it comes back up, plug it back in to a different USB port. 
If you still have problems, go to Start/Search and type *diskmgmt.msc* right click the *diskmgmt *results and *Run As Administrator*. In the Elevated *Disk Management *window does you Flash drive show up here? Is it listed as *Unallocated Space*? Or is the disk shown as being *RAW*? 
If the drive comes up and looks healthy and you can access the files, then run Check Disk on the drive. Go to Start/Search and type *CMD* right click the *CMD* results and *Run As Administrator*. In the Elevated *Command Prompt* type the drive letter of the Thumb drive (eg) *G:* and press enter (eg) *G:\>* At this prompt type *chkdsk /R* and press enter. Now type a *Y *for Yes to _Unmount _the drive. Check Disk will run through 5 stages. 
If all of this still fails, Try the Flash drive on another computer, and if that fails, then the Flash Drive has failed and needs to be replaced.


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## Emil Svensson (Jul 26, 2011)

UPDATE - I tried the thumb drive on an Asus X58c laptop with Windows 7 SP1. To summarize:

*In Windows 7* Thumb drive recognized, but installed as USB DISK 30X USB Device instead of DataTraveler 111 (exactly the same as in Windows XP, weirdly). After being installed (when the little notification in the activity field disappears) however, the drive does NOT show up in Explorer. This is different from how it behaves in XP. However, its presence was at least recognized by Win 7, which I guess is something.

*In Windows XP* See first post for details. Thumb drive recognized, but installed as USB DISK 30X USB Device instead of DataTraveler 111. After being installed the drive shows up as a generic Removable drive (G: ) in Explorer, but prompts me to insert disk in Drive G: when I double-click it. If I right-click it and check Properties to check the size, it only shows 0 bytes available of 0 bytes in total.

In both 7 and XP, when I check the properties of another drive and from there look at the Hardware tab to see the listed drives, USB 30X shows up in the list.


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

Did you go into Disk Management in XP and Windows 7? Did you follow the rest of the instructions?


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## Emil Svensson (Jul 26, 2011)

I went into the Device Manager in XP (I'm assuming it ran with admin rights because there's only one account on this computer, and it's the admin one) to have a look. Expanded the USB-branch but found no yellow icons signifying a problematic entry. Same in Win 7.

Then I checked out Disk Management in Windows XP. I'll just attach a link to a screencap of the Disk Management window. It's in swedish, but I think you'll get the gist of it. Sorry for the rubbish quality.

Diskhantering - Diskhantering.PNG - Minus

In the topmost list, the thumb drive doesn't show up. It only shows the internal HDD (in three partitions: C through E) and the external one Seagate (H: ). But I think that's as it should be.

In the list below, the thumb drive is listed, as Disk 2 (G: ). Removable. It also says "No media" meaning (I think) that Windows treats it as a drive which is connected but into which it thinks a disk is required to be inserted. Like a DVD-reader, basically, I suppose. But on some level it must know it's a USB-device because it installed it as USB DISK 30X USB Device. It's all a bit peculiar.


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

> This is caused by a failure of the drive


. 
For future reference, You do not need to run Device Manager in Admin mode in XP, but you_ do_ in Windows 7, if you want to make changes, even if you are logged in as an Admin user. You can login without Running as Admin, but you can't make any changes. 
The Flash drive has more then likely failed. USB Flash (thumb) drives are volatile and known to fail. You should never use a USB Flash drive as a storage device. You should always keep files you can't live without on more then one drive. USB Flash drives should only be used to transfer files to another computer and not used as a storage device. If you have had the Flash drive for less then one year, you can return it to the manufacturer for a free replacement.


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