Flash Drives

[Black Bart]

Anybody here had problems with your computer being able to "read" a flash drive?

I've got a one-gig Verbatim model flash drive which I always used on my Dell XP computer and have had no problems with it at all (still don't). Office Max recently had a sale on four-gig Verbatims, so I bought a couple and used one of them to successfully download 250 clients to it. Next time I tried to use it, the computer would not recognize it at all (no flash, no nothin'). It's just a piece of dead metal as far as Windows is concerned.

Funny thing though; I've also got another XP in the office -- a later model -- and there's no problem using it with the 4Gs. They load up, are recognized, can import, will export, etc., so obviously the flash drives are not faulty and it's something to do with older computer #1, but...what?

Any ideas?

[sea-tax]

Bart I am by no means a computer expert in fact I am amazed that I can get threw the day sometimes.

I might first try to make sure that the flash drive is properly installed. Take the flash drive and try to reinsert it. If that does not work then my only other advise is to REBOOT. Yep Turn the computer off and then back on. I am amazed at how many of my computer issues are solved by simply turning it off and on .


Hopefully some computer guru will respond in the meantime.

[JohnH]

Waiting for a computer guru

I'm not a computer guru, but while waiting for one to show up I will add that it's important to electronically "eject" the flash drive before physically removing it from the USB port. Failure to do this can cause recognition problems for the flash drive and for the computer. I've heard it can even cause crashes. There's a little icon at the bottom of the screen that enables you to do this eject procedure whenever a flash drive is on board.

[Black Bart]

Thanks buddy,

...I am amazed at how many of my computer issues are solved by simply turning it off and on...

I tried that earlier and it didn't help. But you've got a really good point there -- I too have had various computer problems over the years and it really is just amazing what merely shutting down and restarting will fix.

[Black Bart]

Thanks to you too, John.

...it's important to electronically "eject" the flash drive before physically removing it from the USB port. Failure to do this can cause recognition problems for the flash drive and for the computer...a little icon...enables you to do this eject procedure whenever a flash drive is on board.

I sort of thought it might be something "command-related" like that -- I don't really think it's the computer itself. Still, by not using that previously, I'm not sure that there's a way to recover from it since I can't get the icon to come back up (I didn't notice it before if it was on-screen) by placing the flash in the port because it's not recognized. I'm thinking maybe the step-by-step procedure might have been important on the old computer, but they've eliminated the required usage of it on my later model.

Anyway, I guess I'll cast around on the Net and see if anybody else has had this problem.

[DTS]

Bart

I don't know if this will help, but you might try a "system restore". Set the date to the day before you did this (flash drive) and see if that helps.

Dennis

[Black Bart]

Thanx to you too Dennis.

I don't know if this will help, but you might try a "system restore". Set the date to the day before you did this (flash drive) and see if that helps.

Dennis

I don't know how to do that. Do you know what/where/how to do it. Thanks.

P.S. Anything new on the fires? Are you and Sandy okay?

[Luis Mopeo]

I don't know if this will help, but you might try a "system restore". Set the date to the day before you did this (flash drive) and see if that helps.

Dennis

I wouldn't recommend doing a system restore unless you're sure exactly what you're doing. You could end up having your computer functioning exactly like it did right out of the box, like before you loaded all those programs on it.

[geekgirldany]

Have you tried another usb device on that usb port? It is possible that the usb port has went bad. About how old is computer #1? Do you know the ram and processor it uses?

[Black Bart]

Have you tried another usb device on that usb port? It is possible that the usb port has went bad.

If you mean the spot where I plug in the flash drive, then yes, I've used the one-gig flash drive since then and it works just fine.

About how old is computer #1?

Fairly new. About five years old.

Do you know the ram and processor it uses?

Unsure what that means, but it's got an intel chip and has lots of memory and processing power (something in the gigabytes).

[Lion]

Flash Drives

On more than one computer, on both Dells and Gateways, and with different brands of flash drives and different sizes, I've had nothing show when inserting a flash, but then after closing the My Computer screen and opening it again -- voila! there's the flash drive listed. I don't know why. But, so far, it keeps working for me

[JohnH]

Not sure why this is so

I'm running Windows XP on one computer and Vista on another one (they are not networked). I frequently swap flash drives between them, and as soon as I insert the Flash Drive in the USB port both computers always display the little "Safely Remove Hardware" icon on the lower right side of the screen, on the taskbar. It's hidden until I hover over it with the cursor.

I don't know of any exception to the rule that the flash drive must be electronically ejected, even on the Vista computer.

[Black Bart]

Odd,

On more than one computer, on both Dells and Gateways, and with different brands of flash drives and different sizes, I've had nothing show when inserting a flash, but then after closing the My Computer screen and opening it again -- voila! there's the flash drive listed. I don't know why. But, so far, it keeps working for me

When you posted this, I put the 4-gig drive in the port, went to My Computer, dropped down the list of drives and there it was. Also the file icons appeared on the screen. But then I exited, clicked on the "Safely remove hardware" icon and shut down the computer. Trying it again now when I started up again, I'm back to square one -- going to My Computer it's not listed in the drives, no icons come up, and no icon on the tool bar, so it's being ignored again.

I'll have to find some sure-fire way to do it, otherwise can't risk putting multiple clients on a drive I can't access. But thanks for the tip -- at least I found out that the machine and the drive are still capable of recognizing each other.

[Black Bart]

...I don't know of any exception to the rule that the flash drive must be electronically ejected, even on the Vista computer.

On my other "newer" computer, we routinely insert/pull the flash drives (both 1 and 4 gig) without clicking any icons at all and they always work perfectly with no "electronic ejection" whatever.

[geekgirldany]

I found this on google at a tech forum:

http://www.techimo.com/forum/t175282.html