usb flash disk on vista

sandiemag

Account Deleted at user's request.
has anyone had this before.

the computer has vista installed, when i insert any usb flash disk it appears to be recognised and indicates that it has found new hardware but does not show up in My Computer.

i've scanned the drivers on computer and all of the drivers are up to date.

any assistance please, thx
 
Morning Sandiemag, Whats the make of the usb drive you are using? and what capacity?
i`ll see what i can do
 
Once you’ve plugged your USB flash drive into your computer or laptop click on the start menu. In the search field type in “manage” (without the quotes). From the results that display click on Computer Managment. When the “WINDOWS NEEDS YOUR PERMISSION TO CONTINUE” message appears, just click on CONTINUE. The Computer Management program will now appear.

From the left side items you want to click on Disk Managment. Once you click on it the Middle Pane will display all drives attached to your system. Your USB flash drive should be listed here. In the bottom half of the pane it will be listed as removable. What you want to do is click on the USB drive in the top section of the middle pane. Once it is selected go to the right pane and click on More actions, and then select All tasks, thenChange drive letter and paths. From here a new window will appear. It will say “ALLOW ACCESS TO THIS VOLUME BY USING THE FOLLOWING DRIVE LETTER AND PATHS:”, there should be nothing in the white area below this text, the reason for this is because your computer was not able to assign a drive letter to the USB drive, and thus it wasn’t able to appear in My Computer. What you want to do now is click the Add button. You can now type in the drive letter that you want windows to assign to your USB drive. Anything from N and above would be a safe bet. Once you’ve put the drive letter in click on OK, and then OK again.

And that should be it. Your USB drive should be recognized in MY COMPUTER now, as well as any others that you plug in from this point forward.
 
thanks knot.

just tried that and the disk doesnt even appear it the window.

one of the disks i've tried is an Easy Disk, the other is unbranded, it was a freebie. they both work on another pc with vista, this one is 9 or 10 months old.
 
???..:confused: Sandie - go to system/hardware/Device manager, scroll down to usb controllers.
Uninstall them,Turn off your comp.
Re-Boot and go to system/hardware/Device manager and search for new hardware,as your computer finds them it will automatically re-install them.
if any ask you for locations of drivers - point it towards C/Windows/System 32.
Hopefully this will solve the problem?
Sorry the last post was no help.
Knot
 
Thanks for bearing with me on this one guys


???..:confused: Sandie - go to system/hardware/Device manager, scroll down to usb controllers.
Uninstall them,Turn off your comp.
Re-Boot and go to system/hardware/Device manager and search for new hardware,as your computer finds them it will automatically re-install them.
if any ask you for locations of drivers - point it towards C/Windows/System 32.
Hopefully this will solve the problem?
Sorry the last post was no help.
Knot

Uninstalled all the usb drivers then re-booted.
I still have the issue of the usb flash disks not being recognised.





have you try anything else in the usb


I thought that maybe the usb's were not working properly.
I've tried a usb mouse, external hardrive and a camera.
all these devices are picked up straight away.
So the computer is ok.


the problem is with the usb flash drives only.
Could it be that the disks have old drivers and dont work with a brand new vista installation?
i use both of these devices on another computer that runs vista with no problems at all.


I'm using Windows Vista Home Premier, by the way.
 
Last edited:
should not be a problem them be old it should still pick them up do any flash drives work in the computer or are they the only ones you have
 
I know a few others who are stuck in the same situation, it seems to be a vista flaw. :(
 
Last edited:
Is there valuable information on the drives sandie?if there is, save the information to a folder on the computer they work on.
If not , you can plug them into the other computer running vist and re-format them
(right click on icon and choos format,but do not do the quick format)
Then plug into other computer.
that might fix the problem.?
sorry bud,it really seems to be a vista problem and i abhorr that OS. LOL
 
Is there valuable information on the drives sandie?if there is, save the information to a folder on the computer they work on.
If not , you can plug them into the other computer running vist and re-format them
(right click on icon and choos format,but do not do the quick format)
Then plug into other computer.
that might fix the problem.?
sorry bud,it really seems to be a vista problem and i abhorr that OS. LOL


yip, am gonna dump the stuff off the flash disks and re-format them.
al update you later...lol
 
well, I've installed Paragon Partition Manager to see if that would let me see the flash drives, didn't work either.
The disks have been re-formatted to fat32 and still no joy.

I've run out of ideas now. :confused:
 
Last edited:
sandie whats the make and model of the computer your using and did you build it yourself or someone else? have you automatic updates switched on?
 
sandie whats the make and model of the computer your using and did you build it yourself or someone else? have you automatic updates switched on?

its a brand new acer aspire laptop as5738z with vista home premium.
i have updated the laptop.
 
make sure all your drivers are up to date from here, they all look reasonably new, must be a newish released notebook, windows is not the best for searching for up to date drivers. flash the bios aswell.

sorry bad link, there's actually an important notice on the acer website about your power adaptor, you must flash the bios.

Dear valued Acer Customer,

Acer has identified a potential issue with certain units of the following notebook models:
1. Aspire 5738 (AS5738G)
2. Aspire 5738Z (AS5838ZG)

Under certain circumstances the power adapter on the affected units may overheat and present risk of burn to the user. The cause of this issue is due to the installation of an incorrect BIOS firmware. Fortunately, owners of the affected units may remedy this issue by simply downloading and installing an updated version of the BIOS.

The only affected units are those models listed above which were manufactured in the period April 2009 to June 2009. To determine whether your unit is affected and requires the upgrade, enter the Serial Number (22 digits alphanumeric code printed on the white label on the bottom of the product – see picture) or the SNID (11 digits numeric code, also located on the white label) in the appropriate box below:

http://www.acer.co.uk/acer/service....tx1g.c2att92=122&ctx1.att21k=1&CRC=1675815232

go to that address and select driver downloads and enter the make and model, make sure all drivers are up to date compared to the site, if you still have problems after this i would contact acer about the problem as it should be working.
 
Last edited:
Hi Sandie, I was doing a bit of sniffing around today about your problem and i came up with this article relating to your lappy.
I had a similar problem on a toshiba (dvd wasn`t showing)i was fixing a while ago, and the problem turned out to be related to vista updates, i got a patch from windows for the toshiba model and all was gravy afterwards..

Anyway i came up with this which seems to be Exactly your problem.


ACER Laptop & Defective USB Ports - Vista Forums

Re: ACER Laptop & Defective USB Ports


Try installing the Cumulative Update Rollup for USB Core Components and see
if the problems persist. SP1 includes this extensive rollup of usb hotfixes
that MS has developed since rtm and the rollup may address your issues.
See:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=94


Good luck mate and happy tinkering!!...(y)

Have patience and we will sort this out together...:)
 
EUREKA

Just to let you know that I've sorted the problem now.

There was a driver called 'realtek usb2.0 card reader', saved in the usb drivers in vista.
This is the driver that is being accessed whenever a usb flash disk was being inserted.
This driver must have compatibility issues with vista.

I simply uninstalled and deleted this driver from the usb controllers in the Device Manager. When I plugged the usb flash drives in, they installed the drivers required in the usual way.

Thanks everyone who assisted me in this problem, I really appreciate your efforts.
Especially Knotaclu and axxxo, you did some top notch digging there m8.(y)

I really hope this answer will help others, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has had this issue.

Total pain in the 4rse sorted :)
 
Back
Top