Windows recognize my removable storage device but won't give me a

[SUPAJAwS1]

Windows recognize my removable storage device but won't give me a disk icon to access the disk from. I know it is recognized because the safely remove hardware thing recognizes it and even shows maxtor 3200 usb device. but i just cant access the drive because windows wont give it a drive letter or icon under my computer for me to explore the usb disk. any ideas? just don't know what to try next. thanks for any replies.

[nitroshift]

Right click on My Computer ---> Manage ---> Disk Management. See if your removable storage is present there. If it is, right click on it and assign a letter.

Edited March 4, 2007 by nitroshift

[SUPAJAwS1]

it is now shown below my c partition as a drive letter but below on the partition table it shows it labeled as disk 1. I thought it may have been the logical disk management service being stopped but that didn't fix it once i enabled the service so im still not sure what the problem is.

I just found what may be the culprit. in device manager my mass storage controller doesn't have a driver installed. could this be why? and if so where do i find a mass storage controller driver? I thought that driver was already built into xp. hmmmm

[mmarable]

No, your USB drives do not rely on your mass storage drivers. So that's not the problem.

If you see it in Disk Manager then you're fine. If you manually assign the disk a drive letter (like nitroshift said) does it work correctly?

This is the same way that Windows 2003 handles USB drives. I remember seeing an older post that explained a way to turn on/off the automatic drive letter assignments in Windows.

Have you done any tweaking of your system? Any Registry tweaks added, etc.? Also, did this use to work and then suddenly stop?

Edited March 4, 2007 by mmarable

[SUPAJAwS1]

yes it used to work for me then i had to do a clean install because my old harddrive died on me and i had to put a new one in. now for some reason it isn't like an automatic detection like it used to be. also i can't assign a drive letter to it because it isn't visible in that section of the disk management. it is only visible below where it shows your partition table and doesnt give me the option for adding a drive letter. this is an odd problem and it really stinks. i backed up all my old data to this external drive and now im looking to restore my documents after this clean install and i cant access the external drive. very frusutursting.

[jaclaz]

You won't see it in the top part of Disk Management until you have a letter assigned to it.

So, if you right click on the partition in the lower part of Disk Management you don't have the option to attribute a letter to it?

As I see it, there might be different reasons for this behaviour:

1) Something "wrong" in the "DosDevices" section of the Registry

2) Network drive(s) already mapped to the same letter already mapped for that device in "DosDevices"

3) Some Vid&Pid entries in the USB section of the Registry

4) Disk seen as "Removable" (instead of "Fixed") and partition not being the first one.

First thing I would try is this software:

http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html

if it solves the problem, no need to find the reason for it.

jaclaz

[nosey1]

With your drive disconnected ,Open up device manager,click view tab at top of screen click show hidden devices in dropdown list,expand all trees by clicking + signs at left of lists,look for any paler grey instances of icons,(See pic-this shows old blown up scanner,after software was removed and a disconnected thumb drive) these "ghosts"represent previously used hardware that is not presently installed,multiple ghosts confuses windows,especially for drive letter assignment,right click on any usb or drive "ghosts" and click uninstall.shutdown machine,attatch drive n reboot,hopefully youre sorted.Only other reason i know that you wouldnt get a drive letter is if windows doesnt recognise the file system on the drive.