Windows 10 won't detect USB 2.0 flash drives

[Guest]

I just upgraded to Windows 10 last week. I have 2 drives.One is a Verbatim 32 GB & the other drive a Western Digital 120 GB external USB drive. Both are USB 2.0 (not sure about the WD one as I do not know what model it is).

Both worked last week but now I've experiencing detection problems with them off and on for the last few days on my PC. I tested both of them in each front slot (USB 3.0 & 2 USB 2.0) & I other USB 2.0 drive in the back, They weren't recognized by Windows Explorer, Disk Managent or DISKPART at the command prompt, however I would hear them being detected when I plugged them in.

I tried the Verbatim in my BluRay player & it worked fine (I could watch videos, view pictures, & listen to MP3's - the only functions the player supports) plus it worked in my friend's laptop a few days ago as I had the same problem w/it. I cannot test the other drive as it is encrypted by Veracrypt.

Since both disks aren't being recognized by DISKPART, are they dead? If so, why would the Verbatim drive work in the BluRay Player & my friend's laptop? I'm going to check the Western Digital drive on my friend's laptop tomorrow morning. Or is Windows being a pain in the neck?
If the drives are starting to fail, I don't care about that (well if I can get them to work, great) - I want to be able to save the data without spending hundreds, possibly thousands on taking them to a recovery specialist.

 

[Shaun o]

My advice,
Ditch windows 10, and go back to the prior os you were using.
And surprise surprise, I bet you usb pens work fine again.

There is and old saying "If it works, does what it`s supposed to do and reliable, then why change a good thing" ?

Sadly people are still installing windows 10 then running into problems like you just have only with other hardware and devices.

When a New OS is released don`t rush out to install it just because they say it`s better or faster.
It`s still full of bugs as a new os. and it takes time to fix all the problems.

Ask yourself this did everything work fine with your old OS on your PC. If the answer is yes, then it`s clear what to do.

I don`t even care if windows 10 is free. Because I know it was a push intensive for people to install it.

And look what happens to the poor end user.

A carrot on a stick and string to get the donkey moving so to say by Microsoft.

It has been the case with every new OS ever released by Microsoft.

New OS loads of bugs missed by in house testing because when it comes to Pc systems there is such a wide range of hardware and mixes of it Microsoft cannot, or does not have the time to test all pc systems and hardware configs are 100% bug free and stable with the windows 10 OS.

Relying on early adopters to the windows 10 OS, to find and report the bugs in the early months of a new OS released, Then start to roll out updates,patches and fixes, for bugs within a month or two of a new OS released.
Why I always wait to avoid the headaches it brings.

 

[digitaldoc]

A downgrade to a previous OS is certainly an option as suggested by Shaun O above.

I would confirm that the flash drives work in another machine before committing to anything.

Reinstall the USB driver for your motherboard as that sounds like the culprit.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your advice guys. I have solved the problem now. I use a program called USBOblivion, which removes traces of all USB drives connected to Windows by removing the registry keys for them. The drawback is each time you want to use that particular USB drive, Windows has to install the driver, but that doesn't bother me. Anyway when I used that program & reconnected the drives, they all worked. I guess those registry keys got corrupted.

Mods, you can mark this thread SOLVED.

 

[digitaldoc]

Thanks for the followup, and USBOblivion.

You need to pick a solution to have the thread solved.

 

[simonchipmunk]

shaun o: sounds like good advice to me.i recently received a laptop that is only 40 GB hard drive, and it has win7 with SP! installed. I am not upgrading it to Win 10. two of my pcs have vista installed. I will upgrade them to win 7 with SP1 before next year.one of them will be upgraded to win10,the other wont.

 

[Guest]

My problem has happened again, but a re-install of Windows 10 resolved the problem. I talked with a MS Answer Tech who stated that it may well need a driver for it to work properly. I will call Verbatim about this on Monday when their tech support 800 number is open. In the meantime, I backed up my data onto my hard drive for now.

I will update on this after I spoke to Verbatim.

 

[Guest]

I have spoke to a tech at Verbatim. They suggested not to save any important data on the drive & then reformat the drive with the NTFS file system. If Windows 10 should have trouble detecting the drive again, I am to call them for assistance (they gave me a case #) after I've done the same troubleshooting steps as outlined in my first post.

 

[simonchipmunk]

I have spoke to a tech at Verbatim. They suggested not to save any important data on the drive & then reformat the drive with the NTFS file system. If Windows 10 should have trouble detecting the drive again, I am to call them for assistance (they gave me a case #) after I've done the same troubleshooting steps as outlined in my first post.

I will cross my fongers and pray that their suggestions help you.

 

[Guest]

The USB drive in question works now. My apologies if I did not make that clear before. If this happens again, I'll try their suggestion. If that doesn't work then I will call them for help. If it turns out that the USB drive is indeed dead, no biggie, I have other USB drives to use that are so far working great & haven't given me any problems.

Thanks to everyone for their comments & suggestions.

 

[simonchipmunk]

Thanks for the followup, and USBOblivion.

You need to pick a solution to have the thread solved.

The USB drive in question works now. My apologies if I did not make that clear before. If this happens again, I'll try their suggestion. If that doesn't work then I will call them for help. If it turns out that the USB drive is indeed dead, no biggie, I have other USB drives to use that are so far working great & haven't given me any problems.

Thanks to everyone for their comments & suggestions.

I am so glad your problem was solved.

 

[RenatoPierri]

Hi dear. Instead of using native Windows tools, I did as below:
Went to Windows website -> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
Downloaded the media creation tool, a 17MB file (MediaCreationTool.exe)
Did Run and voilá, USB flash has been recognized.
Just need to follow on screen instructions.
Hope it helps.

 

[simonchipmunk]

Hi dear. Instead of using native Windows tools, I did as below:
Went to Windows website -> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
Downloaded the media creation tool, a 17MB file (MediaCreationTool.exe)
Did Run and voilá, USB flash has been recognized.
Just need to follow on screen instructions.
Hope it helps.

thank so much for your suggestion. I made a note of it in my notebook on windows 10.
simonchipmunk

 

[AnnaDi]

Turn off your wifi or internet, then try to access your flash drive again. Worked for me just now, had the same problem since last night. ^_^

 

[RenatoPierri]

Turn off your wifi or internet, then try to access your flash drive again. Worked for me just now, had the same problem since last night. ^_^

Next time I'll try that just to see if works. Thx ^.^.

 

[agentruby76]

I just upgraded to Windows 10 last week. I have 2 drives.One is a Verbatim 32 GB & the other drive a Western Digital 120 GB external USB drive. Both are USB 2.0 (not sure about the WD one as I do not know what model it is).

Both worked last week but now I've experiencing detection problems with them off and on for the last few days on my PC. I tested both of them in each front slot (USB 3.0 & 2 USB 2.0) & I other USB 2.0 drive in the back, They weren't recognized by Windows Explorer, Disk Managent or DISKPART at the command prompt, however I would hear them being detected when I plugged them in.

I tried the Verbatim in my BluRay player & it worked fine (I could watch videos, view pictures, & listen to MP3's - the only functions the player supports) plus it worked in my friend's laptop a few days ago as I had the same problem w/it. I cannot test the other drive as it is encrypted by Veracrypt.

Since both disks aren't being recognized by DISKPART, are they dead? If so, why would the Verbatim drive work in the BluRay Player & my friend's laptop? I'm going to check the Western Digital drive on my friend's laptop tomorrow morning. Or is Windows being a pain in the neck?
If the drives are starting to fail, I don't care about that (well if I can get them to work, great) - I want to be able to save the data without spending hundreds, possibly thousands on taking them to a recovery specialist.

Don't worry about ditching Windows 10. It's a great operating system.

Step 1

-Go to This PC/computer TAB/manage/disk management

-Now this step can go a couple different ways.
I had a raw image on my USB for installation purposes and I had to delete the volume first. the size was strange. It was a 32gb flash drive but it was showing 24MB. So I had to select delete volume and then it uncovered my drive and showed that it was raw and the size was correct again. The first thing that I did afterwards was to change the drive letter to F or whatever you like. Then I just did a Fat32 format and I can now use my flash drive again.

In a normal situation unlike mine.
In most cases, all you will have to do is select change drive letter and paths. If you're confused about what drive it is, take a look at your main drive which is usually (C Your main drive will be labeled as Disk 0. So don't touch that one. Then let's say you have an external hard drive or another hard drive internally. That will be labeled as Disk 1. The flash drive however, will be labeled as Disk 2 depending on how many drives you have in. The cd-rom drive is really easy to point out because it's labeled as CD-ROM 0.

So if someone is having a problem where the drive is just not showing up or say it's in raw format because you used it to install Free BSD just follow the instructions and your drive will work like it always had.

Thanks, I'm out.