Anyone help with Windows 7 Device/Drive Letters Problems ?

[phpdog]

Hi ,

Recently when i add a USB HDD, USB Flash Stick or SD Cards etc , Windows 7 wont show the device in My Computer in the Drives and Devices if the device has been allocated certain drive letters .

For instance if a plug in a 4GB/8GB Flash stick and its allocated the drive letter " F " it wont show it .

I need to goto the Computer Management/Storage/Disc Management and change it to another letter , then it appears straight away .

The affected letters a have noticed so far are F/G/H/L/M

Is there someway to unload and reset all drive letters ? Can Anyone help with this ?

 

[Binky]

By default, Windows 7 hides drive letters that are empty (i.e. no flash card in the card reader). It shouldn't be hiding drives that have data.

I'm not in front of a Win7 machine, but I'd check the folder options in Windows Explorer first.

 

[JackMDS]

Do you have Network Mapped Drives on the computer?

If you do, Unmap them, and remap them using High Letter (like M and above).

 

[Nothinman]

By default, Windows 7 hides drive letters that are empty (i.e. no flash card in the card reader). It shouldn't be hiding drives that have data.

If that's true, that's really dumb. I might have to check that on my Win7 laptop at work tomorrow.

 

[JesseKnows]

If that's true, that's really dumb. I might have to check that on my Win7 laptop at work tomorrow.

Why do you consider hiding empty sockets to be dump? What would be the benefit of populating your Windows name space with "drives" that can only respond with "no media present"?

 

[Nothinman]

Why do you consider hiding empty sockets to be dump? What would be the benefit of populating your Windows name space with "drives" that can only respond with "no media present"?

I actually read it as Windows won't display flash drives with no data on them, which was what I was calling retarded. However, hiding drives with no media in them is pretty counterintuitive so I'd probably call that retarded as well.

 

[Binky]

I think it's a great feature. Who wants to see 6 empty drive letters from your 6 slot card reader...always?

To the OP-I'd still look at this as a possible culprit. The drive letters may already be reserved for something else.

 

[Nothinman]

I think it's a great feature. Who wants to see 6 empty drive letters from your 6 slot card reader...always?

I don't have a 6 slot reader, but if I did and there were no drives showing up in My Computer I'd think something was wrong.

 

[GeekDrew]

I don't have a 6 slot reader, but if I did and there were no drives showing up in My Computer I'd think something was wrong.

Even though there were no cards in the reader? And even though the drive letters appear when media is inserted? I suspect that you're probably in the minority in disliking that behavior. That said, you can disable that functionality.

That doesn't sound like your problem here, though. Are you attached to a network? Network drive mappings can cause conflicts until manually resolved as you've indicated...

 

[Nothinman]

Even though there were no cards in the reader? And even though the drive letters appear when media is inserted? I suspect that you're probably in the minority in disliking that behavior. That said, you can disable that functionality.

That doesn't sound like your problem here, though. Are you attached to a network? Network drive mappings can cause conflicts until manually resolved as you've indicated...

It's the opposite of what Windows used to do, so yea, I'd think something was broken. In Linux I wouldn't think anything of it because I wouldn't expect the devices to show up until they were mounted.