USB flash drive will not open

[doktor farhad]

i would see if there is an upgrade for your motherboard and see if it will upgrade your usb ports to 1.0 or 2.0 it sounds like the computer it is being hooked up doesn't have the up to date drivers i would try it in another computer to see if it will work in that one and if you are running windows 98 it will not work unless you have usb 2.0 drivers for your usb and if you can't get 2.0 drivers for your motherboard there are usb adaptor cards that you can install

my sony viao flash drive appears but when i want to open it it says please insert disc........i`m lost

[epots9]

my sony viao flash drive appears but when i want to open it it says please insert disc........i`m lost

go to sony's website and look for the newest drivers? are u running on vista?

[botanick]

that leads back to the original problem. I can't format it because it says there's nothing there.

though, I can still "safely remove the hardware", and it shows up that something is in the drive, but when I try to do ANYTHING, it says there's nothing there, it's really weird...i'm about to just trash the thing.

Ok, I finally managed to recover my data using two different softwares.

1. PC inspector smart recovery: COMPLETELY FREE tool, worked for me pretty well. It has two drawbacks. First, it is only able to recover files with certain extensions, such as jpg, mp3, vaw, etc. So if you have some files lost with rare extensions this might not be your solution. Second, recovered files are renamed. Therefore you have to rename all your recovered files. I only lost like 20 files, so it was not a problem for me but if you have thousands of pics to recover, well, you must know if your time worth it...

2. getmydataback. Free for recovery, you can see your files, play your mp3s but cannot save them unless you buy the full version. To my opinion it is worth the money if you have lots of files to recover. Professional tool, finds all files regardless of their extension, keeps original filenames, but be aware of your file system as there is a different software for FAT and NTFS.

As I mentioned, I used PC inspector smart recovery for my 2 GB flashdrive to recover some vaws and it worked fine. However, it does not repair your disk! So I reformatted my pendrive after I saved all files. It works fine again so far...

Almost forgot... be prepared to give recovery softwares hours to find your files. Have your lunch, take a nap or just go for a walk, all up to you. They work well but very-very slow!

[dafodil]

I've got several flash drives, but I'm having issues with one of them. I'm using Windows XP. I connect it, then get that message that "new hardware is found", but when I go to the drive, I get a message telling me to "connect a device"...yet, I can still "safely remove" it.

Basically, it's seeings the stick but not letting me open it.

I've never had this problem and no one I've talked to seems to know why this is happening. If someone can help me out I'd appreciate it.

I had an experienced before where a virus is preventing me from opening my flash drive and my solution is to delete the virus.
And I must format it....


If you cannot format it using windows use dos...

go to:

start menu-->run *** then type command***

If the DOS prompt already appears


Then type format with the name of the drive of your usb with colon and press enter

example: format E:

YOur should computer should already be formatting the usb....


Hope this helps you....

[theother73]

I have found that some USB drive need to be allocated drive letter D before the actually work.
If you reconfigure your drives (ie change the drive path for your DVD/CD to other than D and leave D free) the USB drive will be picked up as D and should be accessible.

To do this right click my computer -> manage
select disk management -> then reassign drive letters so that the d drive is not in use.

Connect USB drive and it should be all ok.
Hope this helps

[Typokween]

Hello I'm also having this problem. I've tried to reformat, nothing happens. I've tried the PC Inspector File Recovery... nothing. I've tried using other computers. Nothing. I have a lot of word document files on this USB Flash Drive (Dane-Elec) and I really would like for them to come back to me! I've been to the Dane Elec website and saw nothing that could be of use. If I were to go to a computer store could they fix it? I really dont know what to do but I really, really, really need/want the files on this USB.

Can someone help? Thank you.

[dafodil]

Hello I'm also having this problem. I've tried to reformat, nothing happens. I've tried the PC Inspector File Recovery... nothing. I've tried using other computers. Nothing. I have a lot of word document files on this USB Flash Drive (Dane-Elec) and I really would like for them to come back to me! I've been to the Dane Elec website and saw nothing that could be of use. If I were to go to a computer store could they fix it? I really dont know what to do but I really, really, really need/want the files on this USB.

Can someone help? Thank you.

Can your computer detect your flash drive?

[Motoma]

Hello I'm also having this problem. I've tried to reformat, nothing happens. I've tried the PC Inspector File Recovery... nothing. I've tried using other computers. Nothing. I have a lot of word document files on this USB Flash Drive (Dane-Elec) and I really would like for them to come back to me! I've been to the Dane Elec website and saw nothing that could be of use. If I were to go to a computer store could they fix it? I really dont know what to do but I really, really, really need/want the files on this USB.

Can someone help? Thank you.

Does the drive show in the device manager?
Can you see it in the disk management screen?

[Typokween]

In answer to both questions. Yes my computer realizes that its plugged in. It says that there is a new device hooked up. But when I try to OPEN that device, it says to insert said drive.

So yes, it shows up in device manager. Yes I can see he disk management screen. But I cannot troubleshoot it because the button is faded out, therefore I cannt press it. Also, my USB is named "Elena's USB" so whenever it USED to plug in that is the name of the drive I would save to/open from. Now it just says Removeable Disk.

I'm going crazy here. It actually opened last night miraculously for a few seconds. In those few seconds I copied everything and saved it to my hard drive. But alas, I'm back to square one trying to reopen it.

How I got it to open before I had Word Document open and on the right hand side in the "New Documen/Open Document" menu I clicked an old pathway to a document saved on the device. It opened and for a few short moments all was well.

But like I said. I'm back at square one. lol

[dafodil]

Try to use the dos prompt. You have saved your files so you could already format it now...

Start->Run
command
then type format and the drive letter followed by colon
format E:
After formatting check again your flash disk by opening it.

[epots9]

Try to use the dos prompt. You have saved your files so you could already format it now...

Start->Run
command
then type format and the drive letter followed by colon
format E:
After formatting check again your flash disk by opening it.

before u do that, make sure that the drive is the "E drive"....u don't want to format anything else (incase u have other hardrives/partitions).

[Chrisjc]

All of these questions and answers are great. But it comes down to this I have seen this more than enough times to know better...

From my experience at home and as an IT in an office with well over 900 computers to look after I maybe get this question up to 3 times in a week... sadly

I suspect that if you remove your FLASH drive with out safely disconnecting it the next PC will not recognize it for the soul porpoise that it was transferring data and needed to finish... and the computer did not say “Okay its safe to let go"

So in many cases I have seen in this thread that you all suggest going to "Manage" in XP by doing so "Right click My Computer > Manage" and then once in there by going to "Storage > Disk Management" You will see all available drives that XP will see thus your PC... Now there are 3 possible issues...

ONE: If you see you’re FLASH DRIVE LETTER but you don’t see it as an open able file or DRIVE in My Computer the case of this is because the last PC it was working on it was still transferring data and did not close correctly and must be REFORMATED. Or taken back to that last PC open it and transfer something the safely remove it and try again at another PC. <<<< THIS IS ALMOST ALL MY CASES

TWO: If you don’t see it in the Disk Management you’re FLASH drive is either JUNK or you do not have the correct drivers installed to run it... I.E. some flash drives won’t work unless it’s USB 2.0

And

THREE: If you do not see anything at all in disk management and or inserting the FLASH in your USE such as the connected window that comes up in your TASK bar then your USB port might be broken TRY a new PORT.

These are the only issues I ever check and sure enough I always find and fix the issue and it is always one of those 3…

I hope this helps some of your guys understand that every answer in this thread is correct! Just need to single out WHY and which reason is your FLASH doing this.

[bartonc]

Thank you, JC for all that work in getting this point across.
I've created an article from your post. You may now reply with a link to this thread any time this comes up in the future.

Thanks, again,
Barton

[Chrisjc]

Thank you, JC for all that work in getting this point across.
I've created an article from your post. You may now reply with a link to this thread any time this comes up in the future.

Thanks, again,
Barton

np, Glad I was able to help =)

[wannano6]

Here is a fix that might help.
Control Panel -
Administrative Tools -
Computer Management -
Disk Management -
Then right click on your correct disk (The one that says removeable) and create a partition then just click thru the steps and you should be ok to use your flash drive again.

Good Luck