Windows Explorer doesn't show my USB stick

Have just bought and plugged in a USB 1Gb memory stick, which XP definitely knows is there, but as it does not appear in Win. Explorer as a storage device I can't load anything to it! XP initially gave it drive letter G (which is used by my digital camera) so I changed it to H but no difference.
I would also expect it to appear as an icon in My Computer, but no.
Any suggestions gratefully received.

 

Hi Tony, the first time you plugged in the USB stick did you get the notification "New Hardware Found" Installing New Hardware "
then "Your New Hardware Is Installed And Ready To Use "
I did have a card reader that would not do that and it would never work and not show up in Explorer.

 

USB plug-in

Open device manager, and expand the Universal Serial Bus controller at the bottom of the tree. Then plug in the USB device and see if it appears in the expanded USB controller tree. It should appear as a Mass USB Storage Volume. Let's start there.

 

Heres what you need!

The USB Drive is filling the same letter as another possibly the camera drive letter.

Download and use this program to control USB drive letters. You can specify a letter to aways use for the drive and also specify a letter never to use.

http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html

Mike

 

Windows Explorer does't show my USB stick

Many thanks for your replies, chaps. Reponding in order -

HAWK22: Yes I got the 'new hardware' notification and Device Manager says the device is working properly.

CJB40: On the USB tree it appears as 'Compatible USB storage device', and 'This device is working properly'. What next?

MFLYNN: Had a look at the program you mentioned - it looks to be v. uiseful, and if all else fails I shall use that.

 

Well!

OK but please let me know what ELSE you do that fixes this. I would like to know!

Mike

 

Click the "my computer" icon with the right mouse button amd from the dropdown chose "manage" then click "disk management" in there will be a list of all the hard drives, cd's, DVD'd and USB sticks installed on your pc. You need to find this one and change the drive letter by clcicking the drive with the right mouse button and chosing that option..

 

Tony you can empty a drive letter right after you Hard disk's last drive letter, as that is what the USB drive wants and is too dumb to know it is already used.

Use Disk managment to change the letters of your CD, DVD and SD card drives several letters away from the HD. If you have a U3 drive allow at least 2 drive letters.

It will stay untill something causes it to change again.

USBDLM will lock it in place!

Mike

 

Thanks for your latest posts, mflynn and speednet. My current drives (before USB) were A: C: D: E: F: G: (digital camera) and X: and I had tried assigning H: to the USB stick, to no effect, but in view of all comments I've just changed it again, this time to U: (for 'USB'!) and, BINGO! It's now there in my Win Ex folders list! Haven't tried writing to it yet but am just about to.

Long Live Windows BBS and all you problem solvers out there!