Question PC will no longer recognize thumb drives

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John Biddle

John Biddle

Jan 30, 2024
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My PC, which seems to work as always in every other respect, will no longer recognize my USB thumb drives. It does recognize my external hard drive and my phone. I've tried multiple different thumb drives on multiple different USB ports with no luck. The PC beeps when I connect them as if it sees the device, but the device doesn't show up in file manager.

I tried to make a bootable thumb drive and was advised to format the thumb drive, which I did, and none have worked ever since. I only did that to one of them.
 
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What are the specs for the system in question (make/model of all installed components)?

In particular, the motherboard info is needed. Sounds like a USB driver issue.

In "my computer" does the thumb drive appear? If so, can you left click on it and format it from there?
 
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John Biddle said:
My PC, which seems to work as always in every other respect, will no longer recognize my USB thumb drives. It does recognize my external hard drive and my phone. I've tried multiple different thumb drives on multiple different USB ports with no luck. The PC beeps when I connect them as if it sees the device, but the device doesn't show up in file manager.

I tried to make a bootable thumb drive and was advised to format the thumb drive, which I did, and none have worked ever since. I only did that to one of them.
Click to expand...
You might try a USB board.
 
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It's a Dell XPS 8900. System Summary under System Information just gives me a spinner. Eventually got error msg: Cannot access the Windows Instrumentation Software. I believe it's a Dell proprietary mobo.

Just standard original equipment components no enhanced video. 16G memory win 10 Home.

The thumb drives do NOT appear in My Computer. The external hard drive and my phone do appear there when connected.
 
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Sometimes you can go into device manager and go to your USB Tree and start from the bottom and "uninstall the device" and keep going up the tree.

When asked if you want to delete the driver CHOOSE NO.

Go up the Tree until you loose your mouse and keyboard. Don't worry just hard reboot. A fresh set of USB drivers will install when you reboot. Make sure you only have the mouse and keyboard plugged in on reboot.

Wait until it is finished

Than retry the USB Thumb drive "s" and yes your External hard drives will need to put there drivers back on when there plugged in.
 
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Checked BIOS and drivers and update, all good.
Followed your instructions, all back working but USBs still won't recognize the thumb drives (3 of them, multiple ports). USBs beep as expected when I connect them to either front port but don't show up in File Manager, but the red LED on the thumb drive doesn't light up. If I connect the thumb drive to a USB in the back, the red LED lights up but there's no beeping. Does not show up in File Manager.
 
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Check under "disk management" and see if they show up there?

Some years back I purchased a set of SanDisk USB drives in a pack of five in different bright colors. Of the five, all but one of them loaded one time and never worked again. The last one has been working great since then. I kept all the others together on a twist tie so as to remind myself never to purchase again. I would make an assumption that what you have tried are different makes/brand/size?
 
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COLGeek said:
On the system in question, has this always been a personal use PC or is it a recycled office PC?

This sounds almost like a USB blacklist setting (as used in some corporate environments) to prevent malware or other nefarious activity.
Click to expand...

If this was the case wouldn't that exclude any storage device?

A buddy of mine got in some pretty deep trouble at a site for writing a script to overcome that limitation due to need. He ended up taking one for the team and got moved to a new site.
 
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punkncat said:
If this was the case wouldn't that exclude any storage device?

A buddy of mine got in some pretty deep trouble at a site for writing a script to overcome that limitation due to need. He ended up taking one for the team and got moved to a new site.
Click to expand...
No. Typically a whitelist would enable acceptable devices. Others will fail. Managed through DC profile.
 
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This has always been a personal PC. All 3 thumbs are the same brand/size, bought in a 5 pack. Four have worked before including 2 of the 3 I'm trying to use now.

I checked Disk Manager: First 2 thumbs I tried didn't show up. Third one did but gave me message:

You must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it. Select Disk (disk 3 is selected). Disks 0 through 2 show up as my current drives, so disk 3 must be the thumb, right?

Not sure if I mentioned this. This whole thing started when I was trying to create a boot thumb drive to fix my greatgrandson's PC. I was advised to format the thumb drive and that failed and no thumb drives have worked since.

Should I go ahead and initialize this disk in Disk Manager?
 
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