Windows 7 does not read usb drive

Here is how to go about it. Here is how to go about effecting changes. When you try to connect the USB ports to the computer and get the error message pop up, you might want to reconnect your USB devices.

If you get the USB device not recognized error, you may need to uninstall your currently installed drive. Follow these steps to do that:. If your drive is not partitioned, you will see at least one drive in particular with an unallocated space to it. Right-click the icon and pick the item " New simple volume ". Now follow these steps to partition it. To get it working again you may need to uninstall them. Follow these instructions to do that. After doing this, your Device Manager will be able to fully display hidden devices in your drive.

To delete unrecognizable devices from your Device Manager and assign a letter to it, follow these steps. If you are having issues with a USB drive such as the Seagate modeled USB drive it may be as a result of the fact that you connect yours to the front port rather than the back. You may also experience the same problem of an unrecognizable hard drive even if you don't make use of a hard drive that is like Seagate's. There are claims that some ports don't have enough power are the front of computer systems.

If this claim is true, you may want to consider connecting your hard drive to the backport to see if it works. Also, avoid using a hub for connection. It is better when you connect directly. Another way to replace the hard drive letter is to use a Diskpart tool. These problems can be resolved however with any of the 7 solutions listed above. One solution may work but in some cases, you may have to use more than one solution to resolve issues. The more suggestion that you should back up your USB data to a safety device or it will cause your data files to get lost.

Once data loss happens, you need a USB data recovery program to help you retrieve all data back easily. Generally rated 4. Download Win Download Mac. Sue Wayne. Step 1. Step 2. Select Device Manager and expand Disk drives. Find and right-click the problematic USB drive and select Update driver. Step 3. Click Automatically search for driver software online on the following screen. Step 4. Wait for the driver to be updated.

Then, reboot your computer. This method can also be helpful in solving disk-related issues like "The system cannot find the file specified". In the prompt asking you to confirm the removal, click OK. Wait patiently and let the process finish. After the computer restarts, the driver will be automatically installed.

If your USB shows up as unallocated space in Disk Management after updating or reinstalling the driver, you are recommended to create a new partition to make it ready for data storage.

Your USB drive should now show up in Windows as usual. You can copy the files you recovered back to your USB if you want. If the drive letter of your USB drive is the same as one of the drive letters of your computer's hard disk partition, you won't be able to see it in Windows File Explorer.

In this case, you need to assign a new drive letter to your USB drive. Here, the file system error refers to an unsupported file system or a damaged file system caused by misoperations or improper formatting.

When you format your USB drive, all data on it will be deleted. Therefore, you should first protect your data by making a copy of it. This program works even when your USB drive is not accessible. Connect USB flash drive to your computer. Click "Scan" button to start looking for lost files on PC. When the scan completes, you can apply the "Filter" feature or the click the search box to quickly find the lost files from USB. Preview the files you want to recover. Click the "Recover" button to restore files.

Windows 7 Hardware Compatibility. Sign in to vote. I have seen other posts about this all without a solution- could I have missed the solution - if so please forgive this posting and please point me in the right direction.

If there hasn't been a solution posted and you know how to solve this issue I am very interested. The Windows 7 Hardware Compatibility indicates this drive is supported and the upgrade advisor did not object to it. Thanks Lionel B. Monday, November 2, PM. Wednesday, November 4, PM.

If it does show here, chances are it doesn't have a drive letter assigned. If this is the case, right click on the drive, select "Change drive Letter If it was not seen there, go to 'Action' on the menu bar, click on 'Rescan Disks' and it should come up. If necessary assign a drive letter to as described above. Tuesday, November 3, AM. The drive does not show up and rescan does not cause it to do so either. Hi Lionel, Please unplug unnecessary device, try other USB ports and see if the device can be recognized.

Regards, Linda. Tuesday, November 3, PM. I just upgarded to windows 7 all good no probs till I came to putting in USB memory stick. I have tried to rescan disks option and no go have opened all hiden files and folders also to no avail HELP!!!! I need this stick to work PS i do use all the USB ports on the PC with other devices no probs but the USB stick is recognised but does nothing, doesn't show anywhere doesn't even blink at me.

Wednesday, November 4, AM. I am having a similar problem that is baffling me with Windows 7. In the Disk Management Console it doesn't show up. Any NEW ideas? Proposed as answer by cwaustintx Tuesday, December 15, PM. Thursday, December 10, AM.

Plug in the external USB hard drive 2. Right mouse click on My Computer 3. Left click on Manage 4. Double click on Storage 5. Double click on Dick Management 6. Left click on Mark Partition as Active 9. Left click on Change Drive Letter and Paths Proposed as answer by nomdeguer Wednesday, July 25, AM. Tuesday, December 15, PM. Monday, December 21, AM. I have this seagate external drive that windows would not recognize after I took the computer off of sleep-- and you fixed it!!!

Wednesday, December 23, AM. Hi - i tried your solution using Windows7 with an Hitachi external drive but my problem is - the computer sees the new harddrive device , but will not open the drive for viewing OR At step 7 - would not uninstall, just keeps running. This worked with my Maxtor drive which had the problem of not ejecting after i had tried to use the Hitachi. Any ideas of what the problem could be? Proposed as answer by plshelpnow Saturday, April 19, PM.

Monday, January 18, AM. Some of these external drives have a proprietary backup software etc which it requires to be run before the drive can be mounted such as my maxtor one touch.. Monday, January 18, PM. Hi, I also have a Hitachi that was not seen same as most every one here by windows 7 and had no success with any of the methods described. I did however get it to work by using "delete volume" in the disk manager then reactivating the volume. Thursday, February 4, AM.

While doing step Number 7 I can not open the drive. There is only the option of "help", I tried using the HD on a different system. Which did work, I know it is not a USB problem the darn things worked on vista. I can see the drive in device manager but I can not open any files nor will it give anything but the "safely remove hardware".

Is there any way to open the drive or is this becoming a lost cause with another windows product? Tuesday, March 16, PM. I had the same issue and it turns out my windows 7 install somehow didn't include 1 INF file that allows usb mass storage devices to work: usbstor. Thursday, June 24, AM. Make sure the following are on in your blackberry.

Go to options on your blackberry Go to Memory and Make sure the following are on Sunday, June 27, AM. Go to Options Then go to Memory All the following need to be on!!! Thanks Pavlovnl. Wednesday, June 30, PM. Update - I had also contacted Fantom support via email and I'm posting their reply. Monday, July 5, PM. Wednesday, July 21, PM.

Did not work for me, it slike i have an HDD HXD5 gb, it works on others windows 7 but does not work in my Windows 7 : In mines it detects, searches for software and then says it did not find any driver for my HD. Sunday, August 1, AM. Tuesday, August 3, PM. Tuesday, August 10, AM. I have tried all the solutions on this page and no luck. Incidentally, the drive does not show up in disk management to assign a drive letter too, but windows does recognize it.

Windows 7 pro fresh install. Tuesday, August 10, PM. Friday, August 13, PM. I was having the same problems with my acomdata PureDrive. I tried a couple different things.

First I followed the procedure above that Lionel provided, but that didn't work for me. Next I went to Disk Management. I couldn't see the drive in the top window pane, but in the bottom pane I could see a drive that was blank it appeared as a Dynamic Drive. After moving all the files from the external drive to my desktop I right-clicked on the blank drive in the lower pane and chose "Make basic drive", then I right-clicked on it again and chose "Format" and it finally appeared.

I am assuming it should be a NTFS drive. Monday, August 16, PM. I'm having the same problem, too. Looking for the solution but haven't found one yet. Does anyone know how to fix this? Wednesday, August 18, AM. I wanted to copy stuff from the old 'puter hard dive so I used an external drive patch cord.

Then I remembered having the same sort of problem on a Red Hat system with a flashdrive. I used a shorter USB cable and there was the drive! Everything worked OK and I was able to copy over my old files. Sounds simplistic but you might give it a try. Sunday, August 29, PM. This helped me so much thank you this got my device working that lets me connect IDE or SATA internal hard drives as an external one and it got my raid working which i was wondering why it was not visible to windows.

Wednesday, October 27, AM. I had a similar issue, you might want to try this out. Wednesday, October 27, PM. Please help!!! Thanks Steve. Saturday, November 6, PM. It should reinstall immediately and show up as a new drive in "My Computer" You may have to uninstall the device first, replug it back in and then run through the above steps.

Tuesday, November 16, PM. When i go to device manager I get the error: Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. Code 43 , My system is Windows 7 pro - fresh install. Do you have any idea? Friday, November 19, AM. Thank you so much! This did the trick. Drive is now working in Windows too. I really do appreciate the work you are doing G. Friday, November 19, PM. This is what worked for me.

I hope that helps the rest of you! Thursday, December 2, PM. Saturday, December 4, PM. Thank you so much, This worked like a dream and made sooo much sense Sunday, January 2, PM. Sunday, January 23, AM.

Thursday, January 27, AM. Friday, February 4, PM. Friday, February 18, PM. Lionel B. Saturday, March 19, PM.

Worked fine too! Monday, March 28, PM. Thank you! You saved my day. Saturday, April 2, AM. Friday, April 15, AM. I tried every thing here but nothing worked. Monday, April 25, PM. Worked like a champ, thanx Lionel. Saturday, May 7, PM.

Any thoughts? Tuesday, May 10, AM. In my case the solution was: 1. Plug in and turn on the external USB hard drive 2. Left click on disk management 5. Right click on the square area that contains Disk on the lower left portion of device manager you will notice in it a small disk icon with red arrow pointing downwards and an "Offline" description beside it.

Choose Online Thats it. I hope this was helpfull. Saturday, May 21, PM. Sunday, May 29, PM. Wednesday, June 8, AM. Thursday, June 9, PM. This is what fixed mine. Thanks so much! Wednesday, June 15, AM.

All, I just want to share with the community how I solved the problem. I know it's hard to spend hours and hours trying different options. That was my experience. Wednesday, June 22, PM. Another solution it worked for me Open Windows Explorer and right click on the LaCie drive which is my external drive and go into Properties. Friday, June 24, PM. You're a legend! This fixed my problem. Thank you very much mate!! Sunday, July 3, AM.

Thanks, your the Man. Sunday, July 3, PM. Thanks Man. I've been battling with 3 external HDD and changing drive letters, thanks to you, has sorted my problem out Thursday, July 7, AM. Wednesday, July 13, PM. I had the same problem!!! Ubuntu recognised it immediately. Windows did not let me use the drive. Saturday, July 30, PM. I don't know if my issue is similar to someone, here. I have Windows Vista x64 Ultimate. Tuesday, August 2, AM.

Thank you very much. You are the best. Was trying to fix it for a while now till i came up to your post. God bless you :.

Tuesday, August 2, PM. Worked a treat, old post still helping! Monday, August 8, AM. Wednesday, August 10, AM. Dyck I have currently come across the issue that was resolved with this method. I have a Manhattan 2. A friend has a device that can check the health of hard drives, and we were able to determine that the actual drive is still good. When I upgraded to Windows 7, though, my hard drive is no longer recognized by windows. It makes the sound showing that it notices when the enclosure is plugged in, but it does not show the drive in computer or any other listing.

I've tried this method in an attempt to fix this issue, but was unsuccessful. Any idea how to fix this? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Wednesday, August 10, PM. Monday, August 15, PM. This worked, thanks a million! Wednesday, August 24, PM. That worked!!

Friday, August 26, PM. Hi all, I got weird problems with the same symptom. Appreciate your advises. Monday, August 29, AM. Thanks very much this fixed my problem - Thank you Stan. Tuesday, September 6, PM. Monday, September 12, AM. Proposed as answer by colhaze Monday, September 12, AM. You are awsome man Yes, this worked. But I had to go into safe mode first.

Thanks for the answer. Friday, September 16, PM. Thank you SO much! Tuesday, September 20, PM. Thanks a lot. It did work perfectly for me. Then came this USB issue and said, oh my gosh Now problem solved. Sunday, October 2, AM. This is it! I finally solved the problem. Thanks for making my day. Monday, October 3, AM. SYS file only mentioned in Step 1 if prompted to replace, pls allow. Sunday, October 16, AM. Worked for me! Windows7 2TB drive. Wednesday, October 26, PM.

Thursday, November 3, AM. Hi all, Hope everyone had a wonderful Turkey Day and that y'all aren't all wiped out from standing in line at your retailer of choice all night! Thanks in advance for any and all advice! Jack I'm out of my mind, please leave a message. Friday, November 25, PM. Lionel, Many thanks. I followed your ticklist and I can now see my drive. All the best. Thursday, December 1, AM. Sunday, December 11, PM. Could you clear that up please?

So how could I even change or assign a letter to a drive that doesn't even show.. Monday, December 12, AM. Please help! You are great; worked all right! Thanks thanks thanks! Wednesday, December 14, PM. Friday, December 16, PM. I realise you left this reply in 09, but you have just saved my hard drive!

Many thanks. Monday, January 2, PM. So far, this is the current status: It is being recognized just with sounds by the computer after plug it in, and the unit is powered up It is not showing under My Computer. Any help will be deeply appreciated!! Thursday, January 12, AM. You are a star this is the only place I managed to find a resolution. Thanks, Allan. This worked for me. Monday, January 16, PM. Note your hard drive will get formatted Right click "computer" Click manage Click click management on the left In the list you will see your disc drive, "disk 1" probaby Right click in the right hand cell of the "disk 1" table.

Sunday, January 22, AM. Tuesday, January 24, PM. Friday, January 27, AM. Thank you very much for this one. Works perfectly for my Lacie gb.

I was have a problem when i was try to connect it on device manager shows like little disk and doesnt works, i was try a lot of times to install and uninstall and i had the same result. Monday, January 30, PM. This worked for me! Thursday, February 2, PM.

Thanks been playing around with this for a while. Friday, February 3, AM. Many thanks!!! Monday, February 27, PM. Tuesday, February 28, PM. Other USB devices works fine, joysticks, printers etc. When plugged in, they do not show in My Computer, checking Device manager, they do show up, however with a yellow triangle. I try updating drivers and troubleshoot, but nothing changes. I check in Control Panel - Device and Printers, and it is showing there under Devices, and status it is working properly.

But as mentioned before I can not access the device. I than checked in Disk management, and I can find the Device in Disk 6, does not have any driver letter attached to it. If I Right Click, and choose the option to change Drive Letter and Path, I get an error message, which reads: The operation failed to complete because the Disk Management console view is not up-to-date. Refresh the view by using the refresh task. If the problem persists close the Disk Management console, then restart Disk Management or restart the computer.

Check the System Event Log for more information on the error. No options in the Blue Box area is working, if I click in the Disk 6 Box, it allows me to see the properties, and confirms all is working fine. But will not allow me to make any changes to the drives letters. Now this happens on my factory Win 7 desktop, if I plug the same device in to my laptop it works fine, no issues at all.

The issue is that this is a problem with any external hard drive I connect to my desktop, with very few exceptions. Please anybody any advice to resolve this problem? Edited by tigermagichjohn Friday, March 9, PM update. Friday, March 9, PM. What I'm not sure about is why this stopped working in the first place Wednesday, March 14, PM. I got this reply from another forum, and it worked for me.

I don't know why, or what this really does. Would be great if somebody could tell me how to solve this problem permanently, as every new device I put in I have to do this procedure. It should reinstall immediately and show up as a new drive in "My Computer" " However it did work for me! Friday, March 16, PM. Thursday, March 22, PM. This is the answer that fixed my problem!!!

Sunday, April 1, PM. Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Nothing else would work and I really needed access to this so thanks :. Thursday, April 12, AM. Tuesday, April 24, PM. Wednesday, April 25, AM. Hi I have a similar problem with my WD1. Friday, April 27, AM. This suggestion worked on all USB drives that I subsequently used Thursday, May 10, AM. I know this post is old but I have to say I could kiss you.