USB Stick does not appear in WinExplorer as drive: How to show/enable drive letter?

[Michael Hertz]

I bought a new USB stick with 4GB and plugged it into a free USB slot on my motherboard.
In contrast to other USB sticks the new drive (letter) does not appear in WinExplorer (under WinXP)
even not after a couple of "refreshes".

However on other WinXP computers the drive letter appears without problems.

Furthermore I can access the drive by command prompt (on the first computer).

So what is the problem of WinExplorer with not recognizing the USB stick?

How can I force WinExplorer to show up the USB Stick?

Michael

 

[R. McCarty]

Is it a U3 compliant device ? - Have you used DiskMgmt.Msc
to verify that XP properly enumerated it and mounted the device.
It should appear in Disk Management as a higher ordered disk
number ( such as Disk 2 ). It may simply be a case of a Drive
letter collision ( trying to use an already allocated letter ). Check
your USB device manager category and ensure there are no
devices listed as "Unknown".

 

[mscotgrove]

I bought a new USB stick with 4GB and plugged it into a free USB slot on my motherboard.
In contrast to other USB sticks the new drive (letter) does not appear in WinExplorer (under WinXP)
even not after a couple of "refreshes".

However on other WinXP computers the drive letter appears without problems..

Furthermore I can access the drive by command prompt (on the first computer).

So what is the problem of WinExplorer with not recognizing the USB stick?

How can I force WinExplorer to show up the USB Stick?

Michael

Occasionally I have seen conflicts, in particular with subst drives
and network drives.

One test to try is to go to the

 

[mscotgrove]

I bought a new USB stick with 4GB and plugged it into a free USB slot on my motherboard.
In contrast to other USB sticks the new drive (letter) does not appear in WinExplorer (under WinXP)
even not after a couple of "refreshes".

However on other WinXP computers the drive letter appears without problems..

Furthermore I can access the drive by command prompt (on the first computer).

So what is the problem of WinExplorer with not recognizing the USB stick?

How can I force WinExplorer to show up the USB Stick?

Michael

Occasionally one can have conflicts with other drives, in particular,
Subst drives and network drives

The first test I would do is to go to Computer management function
(Control panel, then Administrator tools then Computer management)

Select disk management and hopefully you will see your physical
drive. You can then select a drive letter for it.

If you cannot see the drive with this function, you probably have a
hardware issue.

Michael
ps sorry about previous incomplete post - the tab key took me
somewhere I did not want!

 

[Malke]

I bought a new USB stick with 4GB and plugged it into a free USB slot on my motherboard.
In contrast to other USB sticks the new drive (letter) does not appear in WinExplorer (under WinXP)
even not after a couple of "refreshes".

However on other WinXP computers the drive letter appears without problems.

Furthermore I can access the drive by command prompt (on the first computer).

So what is the problem of WinExplorer with not recognizing the USB stick?

How can I force WinExplorer to show up the USB Stick?

Does your computer have USB 2.0 slots? If not, your new thumbdrive may
not be backwards compatible with USB 1.1. Look in Device Manager to see
what your USB hardware is.


Malke

 

[M.I.5¾]

I bought a new USB stick with 4GB and plugged it into a free USB slot on my
motherboard.
In contrast to other USB sticks the new drive (letter) does not appear in
WinExplorer (under WinXP)
even not after a couple of "refreshes".

However on other WinXP computers the drive letter appears without
problems.

Furthermore I can access the drive by command prompt (on the first
computer).

So what is the problem of WinExplorer with not recognizing the USB stick?

How can I force WinExplorer to show up the USB Stick?

Plug in the stick. Go into Device Manager and uninstall the stick (it may
be shown under unknown devices with a yellow '!' icon. Remove stick, reboot
the PC and try again. If it fails to install a second time, then there is a
conflict somewhere.

 

[Jim Dell]

I bought a new USB stick with 4GB and plugged it into a free USB slot on my motherboard.
In contrast to other USB sticks the new drive (letter) does not appear in WinExplorer (under WinXP)
even not after a couple of "refreshes".

However on other WinXP computers the drive letter appears without problems.

Furthermore I can access the drive by command prompt (on the first computer).

So what is the problem of WinExplorer with not recognizing the USB stick?

How can I force WinExplorer to show up the USB Stick?

Michael

Michael,
I think I had this problem once. Go to Administrative Tools ->Disk
management and see if it shows there.

I think the drive letter was assigned and I had to remove it.

Jim

 

[Rey Santos]

Try the fixes in this thread:
USB removable memory not accessible in explorer(or given drive letter
http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.co...t-accessible-explorer-given-drive-letter.html

 

[Eric Gisin]

The drive was disabled with TweakUI or similar.