Comments on: How to get computer to recognize USB thumb drive

Question: How to get computer to recognize USB thumb drive

bison — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 07:17:25 -0800

What can I do to get my computer to recognize my USB thumb drive?

It's worked previously: plug it in, the computer recognizes it's there, voila. Today, nothing. Anything I can do manually to get my computer to recognize the USB drive?

It's a Memorex travel drive and says "USB 2.0" on the bottom, if that helps.

By: bison

bison — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 07:21:29 -0800

Oh, and computer is WinXp, SP2

By: altolinguistic

altolinguistic — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 07:34:18 -0800

try putting it in different USB ports? sometimes these devices only work in the port they were originally put in.

By: bison

bison — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 07:43:55 -0800

Yes, alto, I tried that. Tried every port. 2 in front, 4 in back. No luck.

The kicker is that I had a co-worker plug it in his machine, and it came right up.

By: SeizeTheDay

SeizeTheDay — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 07:48:14 -0800

Did you power off and power back on your machine? Did you check the USB ports with other devices to make sure the ports are working?

By: Classic Diner

Classic Diner — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 08:26:34 -0800

I had a similar problem. It is listed as drive G, but the machine is already using drive G. You need to rename the USB drive.

Control Panel: Administrative Tools: Computer Management: Disk Management: find the USB drive and rename it.

By: busboy789

busboy789 — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 08:54:09 -0800

my problem previously also.

By: bison

bison — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 08:57:34 -0800

Classic Diner's answer was the closest to getting it fixed.

The solution was in the Hardware > Device Manager screen, it had been disabled. Re-anabling it got it come up just fine.

It did not, though, need to be renamed.