J
James Schlackman
Apologies that this is long but I wanted to include all the detail on
this issue.
A user reported a few days ago that none of their USB keys or their
digital camera were showing up in My Computer when plugged in. This is
happening on two laptop machines but all the devices in question work
fine on a different computer. All are running Windows XP Pro. All used
to work fine a couple of weeks ago (personally verified, not just a user
claim).
I've been working on this on and off now for a couple of days and am
stumped; what I'm being presented with is very strange, and while I've
found a number of posts on various forums where others have had the same
problem, no-one seems to have a fix. Here's a summary of my
investigations so far:
- When plugging in any USB mass storage device (tried 4 different ones
so far), no drive appears in My Computer.
- Trying to access the drive by typing its letter into the address bar
(e.g. 'E:\') yields the following Message Box:
[Title bar:] Microsoft Internet Explorer
[Message:] Cannot find file 'file:///E:/'. make sure the path or
Internet address is correct.
- The device shows up in device manager.
- It shows up in disk management, is partitioned and formatted, and has
a drive letter assigned.
- The drive letter does not overlap with any network shares or any other
drives.
- Changing the drive letter has no effect.
- Rebooting with the drive connected has no effect.
- There are no drives hidden using TweakUI, registry, or through Group
Policy as far as I can determine.
- The machine is fully up to date with Microsoft Update.
- There are no viruses on the system according to Symantec Antivirus.
- Here's where it gets strange: the assigned drive letter is accessible
from ANYWHERE that isn't Windows Explorer (or uses it, i.e. Command
dialog boxes). If I open cmd and type E: I can browse the drive fine.
- If I set up a shortcut with the following command line:
explorer.exe E:\
this works, though the address bar for this Explorer window comes up
empty instead of showing the path as it normally would. However, I can
then any address including E:\ into that explorer window without
problems, and launch any file contained therein, but if I open a new
Explorer window and type this address in, even with the first still
open, I get the original error message. If I browse up through the file
system in the new window, the drive is still not visible when viewing
the contents of My Computer.
At the moment the user is using the shortcut I described above as a
workaround, but given the problem is affecting multiple machines I'd
love to know what's going on and how to solve it without a rebuild. Any
and all suggestions (other than a rebuild!) gratefully received.
this issue.
A user reported a few days ago that none of their USB keys or their
digital camera were showing up in My Computer when plugged in. This is
happening on two laptop machines but all the devices in question work
fine on a different computer. All are running Windows XP Pro. All used
to work fine a couple of weeks ago (personally verified, not just a user
claim).
I've been working on this on and off now for a couple of days and am
stumped; what I'm being presented with is very strange, and while I've
found a number of posts on various forums where others have had the same
problem, no-one seems to have a fix. Here's a summary of my
investigations so far:
- When plugging in any USB mass storage device (tried 4 different ones
so far), no drive appears in My Computer.
- Trying to access the drive by typing its letter into the address bar
(e.g. 'E:\') yields the following Message Box:
[Title bar:] Microsoft Internet Explorer
[Message:] Cannot find file 'file:///E:/'. make sure the path or
Internet address is correct.
- The device shows up in device manager.
- It shows up in disk management, is partitioned and formatted, and has
a drive letter assigned.
- The drive letter does not overlap with any network shares or any other
drives.
- Changing the drive letter has no effect.
- Rebooting with the drive connected has no effect.
- There are no drives hidden using TweakUI, registry, or through Group
Policy as far as I can determine.
- The machine is fully up to date with Microsoft Update.
- There are no viruses on the system according to Symantec Antivirus.
- Here's where it gets strange: the assigned drive letter is accessible
from ANYWHERE that isn't Windows Explorer (or uses it, i.e. Command
dialog boxes). If I open cmd and type E: I can browse the drive fine.
- If I set up a shortcut with the following command line:
explorer.exe E:\
this works, though the address bar for this Explorer window comes up
empty instead of showing the path as it normally would. However, I can
then any address including E:\ into that explorer window without
problems, and launch any file contained therein, but if I open a new
Explorer window and type this address in, even with the first still
open, I get the original error message. If I browse up through the file
system in the new window, the drive is still not visible when viewing
the contents of My Computer.
At the moment the user is using the shortcut I described above as a
workaround, but given the problem is affecting multiple machines I'd
love to know what's going on and how to solve it without a rebuild. Any
and all suggestions (other than a rebuild!) gratefully received.
,