Question USB drive not appearing in Windows 7

[orayyyo]

Hello, I have an issue with a USB stick.

The USB stick works without issue if it's connected to a desktop with Windows 10, as my laptop's running on Windows 10.

Oddly enough, the USB stick won't appear when connected to a desktop with Windows 7, which is my co-worker's PC running on.

When connected to my co-worker's PC for the first time, a message popped up, saying the device is successfully installed. But it doesn't appear under "My Computer" drop down menu like normal USB would. I tried running diskmgmt.msc, the drive appears running on the PC as shown on the picture linked below. When I try to eject the stick from the bottom right icons (forgive my poor choice of words), it appears as shown in the picture, also linked below.

Does anyone know what's the issue? Much appreciated

diskmgmt.msc

https://imgur.com/a/oLGDTlR

Bottom right icons

https://imgur.com/a/sqvnRfR

 

[Lutfij]

Looks like your colleagues PC lacks the necessary chipset/USB/MEI drivers. I've had that happen on one system, which after installing the appropriate/necessary chipset drivers, saw my USB drive without issue.

 

[kerberos_20]

that is efi partition which is by design locked from user

 

[orayyyo]

Looks like your colleagues PC lacks the necessary chipset/USB/MEI drivers. I've had that happen on one system, which after installing the appropriate/necessary chipset drivers, saw my USB drive without issue.

Hello, thanks for answering.

That'd be odd, since the first time it was plugged into my colleague's PC, a message popped up saying "Hardware successfully installed" or something along those lines, same happened when plugged into my laptop, and it works with no issue.

Any solutions? Much appreciated.

 

[SkyNetRising]

You have to assign drive letter to the partition. That's it.

Looks like your colleagues PC lacks the necessary chipset/USB/MEI drivers. I've had that happen on one system, which after installing the appropriate/necessary chipset drivers, saw my USB drive without issue.

Drive is being shown in Disk Management. Obviously there are no storage driver issues.

that is efi partition which is by design locked from user

That is not EFI partition. It's just partition label.

 

[orayyyo]

that is efi partition which is by design locked from user

Thanks for the answer.

Any solutions on how unlock it? And by user, which user you're referring to?

I forgot to mention that this USB stick was from a client, could that user be my client? If so, then how is my laptop able to access the stick?

Much appreciated.

 

[orayyyo]

You have to assign drive letter to the partition. That's it.


Drive is being shown in Disk Management. Obviously there are no storage driver issues.


That is not EFI partition. It's just partition label.

Thanks for the answer, I'll try it out now.

 

[orayyyo]

You have to assign drive letter to the partition. That's it.


Drive is being shown in Disk Management. Obviously there are no storage driver issues.


That is not EFI partition. It's just partition label.

I tried assigning a drive letter through the Disk Management, a message popped up saying "The system cannot access the specified space".

Any solution? Thanks.

 

[kerberos_20]

I tried assigning a drive letter through the Disk Management, a message popped up saying "The system cannot access the specified space".

Any solution? Thanks.

that message caan popup if that drive is corrupt, but it shouldnt be since it works on laptop

in disk management, right click on that "EFI" parition and select properties -> security, click on Users
post picture from there

 

[fzabkar]

Windows mounts only the first partition on any removable drive. The following hack circumvents this default behaviour. The procedure is also claimed to work for USB flash drives.

[HOW-TO] Mount Multiple SDcard/Removable Disk Partitions in Windows
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1585572

 

[orayyyo]

that message caan popup if that drive is corrupt, but it shouldnt be since it works on laptop

in disk management, right click on that "EFI" parition and select properties -> security, click on Users
post picture from there

Hello, sorry for the late reply.

I tried clicking on properties, it seemed to be loading something since the cursor changed to the loading icon, but no new window came out. I tried to clicking on "change driver letter and paths", the result was the same. Linked a picture of how it looked when I right click on the drive's partition.

https://imgur.com/a/jKqZc4t

 

[orayyyo]

Windows mounts only the first partition on any removable drive. The following hack circumvents this default behaviour. The procedure is also claimed to work for USB flash drives.

[HOW-TO] Mount Multiple SDcard/Removable Disk Partitions in Windows
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1585572

Thanks for the suggestion, but it looks risky despite only installing a driver for the USB stick. I'd have to consider it, but I appreciate the suggestion.

 

[fzabkar]

Can you disable the 200MB EFI System partition? Do you really need this partition anyway?

If you can't do this via Disk Management, it should be possible to do it with a disk editor, eg DMDE. Just change its partition ID in sector 0 to 00. I can help with this if you wish to try it.

 

[kerberos_20]

open PowerShell and execute

get-volume | fl

it will give u several objects partitions/mount points
look for those without drive letter until u find your partition which we want work with (see Size in Bytes, 14,24GB should be around 14,931,722 bytes)
copy somewhere Path or UniqueId (should be same)

if u cant find it, post it all here (select with mouse, then press enter and ctrl+v here in reply)

once u get that path/id
run in CMD

chkdsk "\\?\Volume{eb38d03c-29ed-11e2-be65-806e6f6e6963}"

replace with your id/path
once done, try assign drive letter


if drive letter still wont work
type in CMD:

mklink /j c:\test \\?\Volume{eb38d03c-29ed-11e2-be65-806e6f6e6963}\

once again replace with your id
in C:\ new folder will apear, inside will be your hidden partition
and your files should be accessible from this folder

if u really need to have drive letter
then run in CMD

subst X: C:\test

this will mount it as X:
but u cannot delete that test folder, u can delete it once u dont want to use that usb drive anymore
once u decide to delete it,
run in CMD

subst x: /D

edit:
if u cannot open test folder in C: or virtual X: drive (if u mount it there)
then u dont have enough access level

 

[orayyyo]

Can you disable the 200MB EFI System partition? Do you really need this partition anyway?

If you can't do this via Disk Management, it should be possible to do it with a disk editor, eg DMDE. Just change its partition ID in sector 0 to 00. I can help with this if you wish to try it.

I'm not sure, if there's data there occupying the 200MB partition, then I don't think I'll be tampering it. This is a really stupid question to ask but, would changing the partition ID fix the problem entirely?

 

[orayyyo]

open PowerShell and execute

get-volume | fl

it will give u several objects partitions/mount points
look for those without drive letter until u find your partition which we want work with (see Size in Bytes, 14,24GB should be around 14,931,722 bytes)
copy somewhere Path or UniqueId (should be same)

if u cant find it, post it all here (select with mouse, then press enter and ctrl+v here in reply)

once u get that path/id
run in CMD

chkdsk "\\?\Volume{eb38d03c-29ed-11e2-be65-806e6f6e6963}"

replace with your id/path
once done, try assign drive letter


if drive letter still wont work
type in CMD:

mklink /j c:\test \\?\Volume{eb38d03c-29ed-11e2-be65-806e6f6e6963}\

once again replace with your id
in C:\ new folder will apear, inside will be your hidden partition
and your files should be accessible from this folder

if u really need to have drive letter
then run in CMD

subst X: C:\test

this will mount it as X:
but u cannot delete that test folder, u can delete it once u dont want to use that usb drive anymore
once u decide to delete it,
run in CMD

subst x: /D

edit:
if u cannot open test folder in C: or virtual X: drive (if u mount it there)
then u dont have enough access level

I'll try this slowly step by step, since I can't be at 2 place at the same time in the office. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[orayyyo]

Can you disable the 200MB EFI System partition? Do you really need this partition anyway?

If you can't do this via Disk Management, it should be possible to do it with a disk editor, eg DMDE. Just change its partition ID in sector 0 to 00. I can help with this if you wish to try it.

I gave up and decided to download a free DMDE version 3.6.0. I got to this step, what should I do next? Thanks in advance.

https://imgur.com/a/sMrxDQJ

View: https://imgur.com/a/sMrxDQJ

 

[SkyNetRising]

If you delete 200MB (efi system) partition , the usb drive will become unbootable.
Other than that, there will not be any data loss (other than removed bootloader).