flash drives: not recognized

[mamboknave]

I finally got rid of a virus that messed up with my laptop that runs
on XP.
Now the laptop works fine with one bad exception: neither it sees
anylonger the USB flash drives nor the flash card.
The led light of the drive is on and I hear the proper tone when
inserted but no "autoplay" window showing its content pops up (as
instead should).
The drives do neither show up in My Computer nor in the Disk
Management.
Actually, the Disk Management is just empty! Nothing in there, not
even the regular C: drive.
The Device Manager says everything is OK.
The processes of finding new hardware (unuinstall/install and
uninstall/reboot) leave the problem unchanged.
I would greatly appreciate any help.

 

[Brian Lynn]

I am having the exact same problem!!

Windows XP Pro, SP3
HP nx9420 laptop

My Computer won't see any USB storage devices like flash memory sticks or SD
cards in a card reader.

I've checked for drive letter conflicts and I don't have any...

When/if I plug in a U3 memory stick I can see the U3 CD part of the stick,
but none of the flash memory storage area.

When/if I put an SD, SDHC, or Compact Flash card into a card reader I get
nothing.

None of what should be available storage space can be seen under Disk
Management. Its like the disks don't exist or just don't work.

Every stick I'm having issues with, every flash card I'm having problems
with, they all work on other machines without any issues at all!!

Help!!

Thanks!

 

[Brian Lynn]

FIX:
Under Device Manager my USB drives show up with an "!".

Right click, unintsall, pull the card/stick and put it back in, now it
works...

 

[John N]

I have the same excat symptoms on one toshiba notebook, but this week, three
compters have showed up in my shop suddenly with flash drives not recognizing
but usb mouse works; one with hard drive also missiing in computer
management. One would not run USB anything until booting up with Acronis off
a CD to prove it was not hardware. I think something has happened in the last
week. Virus, wupdates, all of the above?