Can't access USB Key 1

[Mighty]

I have windows Xp Pro Service Pack 2 installed on a laptop. I have a USB key and when I plug this into the laptop it beeps to let me know that it has seen it. If I look at the "Safely Remove Hardware" screen it is listed. If I look in the device manager it is listed as a disk drive.

However, nothing pops up asking me what I want to do with the device. And if I look in My Computer there is no icon to access the data on the USB key.

any ideas?

I should point out that the key works fine on my desktop PC - also Xp Pro Sp2.

Mighty

 

[TheLad]

Have you got any network mapped drives on your laptop that may be assigned to the drive letter the USB stick is trying to use? Like if you have a network drive mapped to F:, disconnect it and see if the memory stick is available then? Or have a look in Disk Management and assign a free drive accordingly

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"Who is General Failure and what is he doing on my computer?"
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[Mighty]

Thanks.

The drive letter assigned was a mapped drive. Used Disk management to change the drive letter assigned to the USB Key and all is now fine.

Cheers.

Mighty

 

[Mighty]

New development on this problem. The USB key worked fine when I went in to the Disk Management and changed the drive letter. However, the laptop is not retaining that information. If I take out the key and then put it in again, it doesn't use the drive letter that I assigned to it.

Basically, the F drive is a mapped drive that is common to all users and gets mapped via a login script. The USB key tries to use F when you put it in. I changed the drive letter to I and it worked fine. However if you take it out and put it back in again, it tries to use F again.

Any way around that one??

Mighty

 

[tlcscousin]

If you go into disk management and right click the drive and change the drive letter and path and change it to something higher like z and ok the settings it should then remember the drive letter.
You might have to then go into the properties of the drive and the sharing tab and check that it shows as the drive letter you picked.

 

[chirkware]

This is why I would never start mapping network drives at F.

Yhe PC probably has a partitioned hard drive taking C and D, as well as an optical drive E. Or, it may be a hard drive and two optical drives. That leaves the next device wanting F, whether it be a USB key, an external CD/DVD writer, or whatever.

You will end up having this problem over and over on various machines on the network as long as drive mappings start at F...it's just too common for that to be the first available drive letter.

Personally, I wouldn't use any letter lower than H for mapping network drives.

 

[txtazdad]

Could also be the usb device itself. I have deployed usb wireless network adapters where I work, they work fine, but when removed, they lose their settings, they will not "remember" them, I checked with linksys & they confirmed this. In other words, once removed it won't "remember" it's drive letter assignment

 

[gmail2]

We had a similar problem like this before. As far as I remember, the drive assignment letter will only be remembered if you plug the same USB device into the same USB port as what it was in when you changed the drive letter assignment.

I agree with chirkware - traditionally mapped drives started at Z: and physically attached drives started at A:. So mappedd rives should be furhter down the alphabet and physical drives closer to the top. If possible I think the best option would be to change the drive mapping rather than the USB device mapping. Just my 2 cent

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