Windows Vista My Computer - Drive letters of USB and SD cards not showing

I am using a two year old laptop with Vista SP2 installed. I need help with this one that has just come up suddenly, which is probably easy when you know how.

Selecting "My Computer" after inserting any USB drive or a card in the card reader slot there is a problem. I can see my C: and D: drive when I select any View options. But I do not get the drive letter of the USB or card I have inserted. I have been able to use the "Start Search" by entering drive letters at random and eventually the drive folder opens. But today with an SD drive inserted no drive letter was displayed nor could one be found. (I thought all drives would have a letter allocated to them !!!)

I wondered if it was because I had previously altered Folder Options but have reverted to Default Settings and that had no effect of this particular problem.

The problem occured after I had made a few changes using TweakNow Power Pack 2009 but may have been co-incidental, and not relevant.

I promise never again to go fiddling with with configuration setting unless I am quite sure I know what I am doing.

 

This is exactly how I learned about computers - messing with settings and tweaking things until I broke something.

And that's why forums like this exist - to help you out of the same situations that we were in when we messed with things!

So, I'd first start by going into Device Manager to see if there are any problems there. To do this, go to Start and type in "devmgmt.msc" (without the quotes) and press Enter. Look for anything with a red X or a yellow ! - and let us know what you find.

Next, go to Start and type in "diskmgmt.msc" (without the quotes) and press Enter.
Let us know what you find there. In some cases you'll be able to right click on the removable device and assign it a drive letter - give this a shot (but don't mess with the hard drive or the CD/DVD drive).

 

Thank you USASMA for your interest in helping me sort out this problem. I have checked Device Manager. I don't think there is anything untoward there. Under Disk DRives it gives the Hard Disk which is a Hitachi ATA Drive. It also mentions that I have a Secure Digital MMC Drive. This is true but it does not show up in My Computer folder. In Portable devices it only mentions Microsoft WPD filesystem volume driver. (I don't what that is.) Under SD Host adapter it mentions SDA standard compliant SD Host controller. Under Storage Controller it mentions ENE PCI for Memory stick, Secure digital/mmc card reader and XD card reader.

Under DiskMgmt I get some reading I don't quite understand. It gives Vol. Healthy EISA Config 7.81 gb 100% free. Disk 0 74.53 gb online. EISA Acer C Data D

It then goes on to Disk G 970 mb FAT Removeable drive. Which is true in that I only have the SD drive in the slot. But I were to plug a USB memory in, that would have a drive letter there too. But neither of them would show up on the "My Computer" folder.

I dont know if that will be any help to you. It just tell me the drive letter of the stick or card and then I can put it iinto the Start Search box the drive letter and :\, and it will then come up with a folder I can work on.

 

OK, the next thing to try would be to reinstall the drivers for the SD card reader and the USB controller (likely a part of the motherboard/chipset drivers).

Once that's done (if it doesn't help), then it's a matter of looking around inside Windows to see what's been changed there.

 

Thank you John for your continued interest. After trying your first suggestions and it didnt really help me I carried on searching (for hours and hours) for a solution. I then discovered my main desktop computer had the same problem and I knew I had (again) poked around with things I know little about. In this case it was the TweakNow Power Pack 2009 program. I eventually discovered that in tweaking with Windows Explorer I had the option to prevent drive f:, G: and h: from being displayed by unchecking a tick box. I re-ticked the box on both my desktop and laptop and now everything has reverted to the way it should be.

I am still very grateful for your kind help. I also have tried to make a donation to the BBS but haven't been able to get through - but I will keep trying.

Incidentally, I am assuming from your title that you are a military man. I have to say that I too am (or was) a military man myself having spent 40 years in the English Air Force, or Royal Air Force as we call it. It was a great life and I hope your time was too. I retired in 1993. I shall mark this thread now as "Resolved. "

 

Awesome! I had the same problem! Thanks for spending the time to solve.