I believe that the flash drive failed even though it has been over a year since I bought it. It was working fine up until the first Windows 11 update in November of this year.
I believe that the flash drive failed even though it has been over a year since I bought it. It was working fine up until the first Windows 11 update in November of this year.
Hi Patrick. I'm Greg, here to help you with this.
It sounds like it might have failed, but let's make sure.
Please try all these steps for USB flash stick not detected:
Try all other USB ports. The ports on the opposite side usually use another USB controller.
Plug in the USB drive, go into Settings > Devices > Autoplay to find the device, in the drop down menu choose what you want it to do.
If it doesn't show up right click Start to open Disk Management, scroll down to find the drive by size and type, if indicated initialize or format it, or right click to assign a letter.
If that doesn't help then right click Start to open Device Manager, find the drive under USB or other device categories, right click to Uninstall Driver, restart PC to reinstall the driver.
Then right click all USB controller drivers to Uninstall, restart PC to reinstall them,
If it still doesn't show up, is it read in another PC? If so copy it's files into a folder on the desktop, test the flash stick with diagnostics here:
https://www.raymond.cc/blog/how-to-check-and-te...
If it passes diagnostics clean and then format the drive:
http://www.howtogeek.com/235824/how-to-clean-a-...
Finally run a DIsk Check: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/gu...
Only if it passes both tests would I trust it further.
I hope this helps. Feel free to ask back any questions and keep me posted. If you'll wait to rate whether my post helped you, I will keep working with you until it's resolved.
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My computer can't read my usb drive. I've already determined that it is the drive via using a different computer and checking different drives(all but this one work). It was working just fine yesterday. All I can do is eject it.
I'm worried this may be the end of the drive. Is there anything I can do? I don't want to lose the files on it. I've tried everything I can when researching the problem.
How can I make the USB stick work again?
You can't.
If no computer can "see" it, you can't use your computer to fix it.
If you had time, skills and resources, you might be able to disassemble it, identify the faults and repair or replace the faulty components. This would probably cost more than purchasing a hatfull of new USB sticks.
Update: the following advice seems to have been helpful for some people
Assuming that the drive has been properly partitioned and formatted, then this USB drive probably still needs to be enumerated for this computer. Open Control Panel. Go through Administrative Tools to Computer Management. Under Storage, click on Disk Management. Locate the USB drive and it probably needs to have a drive letter assigned to it. Do so (Right click and change drive letter - make sure it's not in use at time). Should take care of the problem.
Obviously this is only useful on those occasions when the device does show up in Disk Management (you said it sometimes did).
I had a SanDisk Cruzer Edge 8GB USB that was recognized but I couldn't use it. The steps that worked for me were to basically:
- Go to: Control panel → System and Security → Administrative tools
- Open Computer Management.
- Go to Disk management on the left, and look at your drives.
Your problem will probably be that it is not allocated on your PC.
- Right-click the drive
- Click the text at the top
- You will assign it and give it a letter (Choose one that isn't already taken, e.g. D)
It will assign it to your PC and you will be able to use it.