USB Flash Drive lost drive allocation

[Guest]

I have identical 2 USB flash drives and 2 identical computers. Everything
worked fine. On one computer, now when the Flash drive is inserted, it shows
in the task bar and the "SAFELY REMOVE" window is there. It appears in
DEVICE MANAGER as a USB Mass Storage Device. That's about it...I can't
access it. In MY COMPUTER, it used to appear as F: Drive...not any more. I
went to COMPUTER MANAGEMENT / DISC MANAGEMENT and allocated it Drive Letter
F: Everything looks OK...except it still doesn't show up in MY COMPUTER.

The only difference I found between the 2 computers is that in COMPUTER
MANAGEMENT, the USB Flash drives show up in DISK MANAGEMENT as well as
REMOVABLE STORAGE. The computer that has the problem doesn't show the flash
drive in REMOVABLE STORAGE. Besides this...everything else is the same on
both PCs. Both flash drives work perfectly on the other PC and show up as F:
Drive.

Why doesn't it appear as F: even after it's been allocated that drive letter
in DISK MANAGEMENT? How can I get it to appear in removable Storage as well?

It's been uninstalled and reinstalled, drivers updated, formatted and still
the same results. I'm using XP Home SP2

Thank you for any help / advice!

 

[Bill Blanton]

See if this helps-
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtrouble_e.html

Specifically the section titled; "Two identical drives"