# USB flash drive not recognized



## rodeogpr

I received a 1gb flash drive as a door prize so I have no idea of the brand. I took it to work and plugged it into the USB drive on my work computer which runs XP SP2. It worked fine, to my surprise. Later I had to restart the computer for another problem but left the flash drive plugged in. When the computer rebooted the flash drive was not recognized so I unplugged it. It has not been recognized since, despite numerous shut downs & restarts and trying to plug it into other USB ports on the machine. Thinking I killed the drive I took it home and plugged it into my home computer, which also runs XP SP2. The drive works fine! Any ideas on how I can get my work computer to recognize this device again? I've plugged in other flash drives on the work machine and they are recognized, it's just this device. Help!


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## sobeit

try assigning a drive letter to it. 

1 Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Performance and Maintenance.
NOTE: If you do not see Performance and Maintenance, go to step 3. Performance and Maintenance is displayed in Control Panel only if you use Category view. If you use Classic view, Performance and Maintenance does not appear.
2Click Administrative Tools, double-click Computer Management, and then in the left pane, click Disk Management.
3 Right-click the drive, partition, logical drive, or volume for which you want to assign a drive letter, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
4 Click Add.
5 Click Assign the following drive letter (if it is not already selected), either accept the default drive letter or click the drive letter that you want to use, and then click OK.


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## rodeogpr

Thank you for the suggestion. I have followed the steps you outlined, but when I go to the Disk Management screen, I only have 1 drive listed, the C:/ drive. When the flash drive mounted correctly it mounted to E:/. The D:/ drive is my CD-ROM. So E:/ is gone. When I click add and type E:/ under the "mount in the following NTSF folder" prompt, I get an error message "the system cannot find the path specified." So I guess the question is, how do I restore the E: drive?


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## rodeogpr

I should also mention that the "assign the following drive letter" option is grayed out.


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## vrangana4au

I too have the same issue. My USB (Flash Drive) was readable a few hours ago.

I stopped the drive and remved it. Now when I insert the flash drive, the PC scans and rcognises this to be a removable Disk. It assigns a Letter, however, it prompts the following: "Please insert a disk into Drive E:"

In the Disk Management scree, this drive is shown as:
"....
Disk 1
Removable (E
No Media
...."
Any help would be appreciated!


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## Jenn81703

vrangana4au said:


> I too have the same issue. My USB (Flash Drive) was readable a few hours ago.
> 
> I stopped the drive and remved it. Now when I insert the flash drive, the PC scans and rcognises this to be a removable Disk. It assigns a Letter, however, it prompts the following: "Please insert a disk into Drive E:"
> 
> In the Disk Management scree, this drive is shown as:
> "....
> Disk 1
> Removable (E
> No Media
> ...."
> Any help would be appreciated!


Did anyone ever help you figure this issue out? I am having the exact same problem today. 

Thanks!


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## smithblacky

My USB flash drive cannot be recognised. what do i do?


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## sweRving

Same problem here any one out there know???


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## Forged

I've had the same problem (on windows 7 though) and solved it by going to Device Manager, uninstalling the drivers for the usb-drive. After that i took out the flashdrive from the computer and plugged it back in again.

Don't know if you're experiencing the same problem, but this was the solution for me.


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## spunk.funk

With the drive plugged in, go to Start/Run and type *devmgmt.msc* and press enter. In the Device Manager, do you see any devices with a yellow mark? Or under *U*niversal _S_erial *B*us Controllers do you see an *Unknown* Device? If so, right click it and *Uninstall* it. Now remove the Flash Drive and restart the computer. Once the computer has loaded back up, put the Flash drive back into the _Back _USB port of the computer not the front or through a Hub as these are weaker ports. You should get a new Hardware Wizard. If you got that but no drive letter. Then go to Start/Run and type *diskmgmt.msc* and press enter. In Disk Management, if you see your drive there it may be taking up the same drive letter as another device or mapped network drive, right click the drive and choose *Change Drive Letter or Path* and choose a drive letter not being used.


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## haybobe

I just had the same problem. After reading this forum and searching everywhere, I used the following FREE software to recover everything!!!! I'm so happy I could cry!! Or :dance:

Free Flash Drive Data Recovery Software | Flash Drive Repair and Data Recovery


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