I use USB a lot. a LOT.

i have usb jumpdrives for school. my cell phone connects to my pc via usb. my internal memory card reader is usb. and yet...i cant use any of them.

they just...dont show up in My Computer.

the really weird thing is that if i plug in my jumpdrive, or my phone, i get all those bubbles popping up about "safely remove hardware" and "installing new hardware" or whatever. everything does what its suppose dto. it jsut...doesnt show up. and its not detected by any software. the software that came with my phone, or memory card reader sya its not there.

this has happenbed many times. every time i reformat my PC, its there. theyre all there. then one day i notice theyre not! sometimes it takes months, sometimes weeks. i dont understand!

ive tried googling around, since reformatting everytime i want to read my memory stick is getting old, and ive seen people with similar problems. but there are no answers anywhere.

oh! im running XP Pro on an intel pc, btw.

anyone have any suggestions?

It's probably trying to use a drive letter that is already in use.

RIGHT click My Computer

Left click Manage

Left click Disk Management

Find and then right click on your drive

Left click on Change Drive Letter and Paths and choose a new drive letter

I see this nearly every day and I agree, it's frustrating and I wish Microsoft would fix it.

Since this problem keeps reoccuring on the same PC, it might be hardware related. Check all USB settings in the BIOS setup for accuracy. Also make sure you have the latest & greatest USB drivers for your hardware. You didn't mention what XP service pack version you're running, but if you haven't done so already, install SP2.

I made an assumption:

No exclamation marks in Device Manager

Service Pack 2 installed

Moral:

Never make assumptions

Make sure the Logical Disk Manager is set to Manual or Automatic (Auto is better). Without it, new drives won't be assigned a drive letter, and therefore won't show up in My Computer.

Also, another thing to try. Go to Device Manager and scroll down to the Universal Serial Bus controllers section. Uninstall ALL entries under this section (remove any USB devices first). Then reboot. Windows should reinstall your USB drivers.

Hope this helps.

you know, this is interesting, because i can say with absolute certainty that everytime this has happened i had either Alcohol or Daemon installed. i dont know, maybe thats whats messing up my letters.

anyway, this logical disk manager. how do i access it?

in the meantime ill try this device manager suggestion.

Sorry - the Logical Disk Manager service. Start->Run->services.msc.

I've got Daemon Tools 3.47 installed, and I haven't had the problems you describe. I'm not really sure what's up, but I wouldn't point the finger at them quite yet.

I am using Daemon Tools 4.03 and use USB flashdrives a lot too and never had any problems. Is your pc stand-alone or part of a network? If it's part of a network, have you got any mapped drives? Windows will assign a letter to your USB flash drive that might be in use by a mapped drive (happened to me before, picked my brains a while to find out the solution). Try disconnecting all mapped drives and then plug your USB drive in. Hope this helps.

see the thing is, its not just my usb stick. its everything! any part of my pc that requires USB. it all functions great. my APC battery backup. my ATI RemoteWonder for my all-in-wonder video card. just..windows explorer cant find it?

its the damndest thing. and until now i enevr realized how badly i needed USB.