EXplorer does not see USB disk (usb stick) but DOS window does

[~~~ .NET Ed ~~~]

Windows remains a weird beast with personality problems. My HP printer has a
built in many-in-one card reader. Usually when I inserted a card there I
would see in Windows Explorer the associated device and could simply
navigate to it with the explorer. My system is Win XP Pro SP2 with all
available updates.

Now it just does not do it. I inserted the card and the light on the printer
indicates the card is inserted and recognized. On the notification bar the
"Safely remove hardware" icon appears and tells me there is an USB device
assigned to the drive letter H:.

So far so good but when I open the Windows Explorer drive H: is nowhere to
be seen!!! even when I try the refresh option it does not show my new drive.

As I mentioned the safely remove hardware knows there is something stuck
there. When I open a DOS command window and issue the "dir H:" command I can
see all my files in the USB stick. But the Windows explorer just never
does!!!!

Any way to fix that issue? I have seen this happening on other computers and
not just mine. I must say it is a very annoying problem that usually
requires the machine to be restarted (bad workaround).

I don't believe this problem has ever been addressed by Microsoft.

 

[John Wunderlich]

I inserted the card and the light on
the printer indicates the card is inserted and recognized. On the
notification bar the "Safely remove hardware" icon appears and
tells me there is an USB device assigned to the drive letter H:.

So far so good but when I open the Windows Explorer drive H: is
nowhere to be seen!!! even when I try the refresh option it does
not show my new drive.

As I mentioned the safely remove hardware knows there is something
stuck there. When I open a DOS command window and issue the "dir
H:" command I can see all my files in the USB stick. But the
Windows explorer just never does!!!!

Have you tried the solutions here:
<http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtrouble_e.html>

HTH,
John

 

[~~~ .NET Ed ~~~]

Come on! I don't believe I am the only one who is experiencing this problem.

 

[John Wunderlich]

Come on! I don't believe I am the only one who is experiencing
this problem.

OK. I had this problem once and traced it down to "Adobe Photo
Elements" (or Album or something like that) which is a program that
comes bundled with the free Adobe pdf Reader. If this program is
installed, you will see a camera-like icon in the system tray. Right-
clicking on this camera icon and quitting the application restored my
USB stick functionality until next reboot. Un-installing the program
fixed it permanently. It seemed to only affect USB memory
sticks that had .jpg pictures on them. Perhaps this is your problem?

HTH,
John

 

[~~~ .NET Ed ~~~]

Now that you bring it up, I did have that problem long time ago and also
traced it to the Adobe Photoshop Elements (the free version). I was sooooo
annoyed by it that I immediately uninstalled the PhotoShop Elements
application.

The problem has obviously not disappeared 100%. The only camera icon on my
notification tray is that of my Logitech webcam.

I wonder if this has to do with the BLOATWARE of the HP Software belonging
to my HP-1610. Unfortunately the fantastic design of HP is that either you
install the whole 365MB of bloatware (all inclusive, including problems) or
nothing and get an expensive paperweight in exchange.