USB external drives not showing up on "My Computer"

[tincansailor]

I am running a Cyberpower desktop, with a Gigabyte GA870A-UD3 MB, an AMD 1100T Phenom II CPU, 8 GB RAM, on Windows 7 Professional 64bit.
Recently, I noticed that a Flashdrive, or external HDD, no longer appear on the "My Computer" window. I checked all the drivers, they are current and correct. Any of the external drives appear on the Disk Management window, and can be accessed from there.I have no trouble reading or writing to a drive IF I use Disk Management to access it. But, nothing on the "My Computer" window.
Any suggestions.

 

[Coup27]

Have you hidden "devices with removal storage" from the my computer dialog box?

 

[tincansailor]

Thanks for the replay.
No, the Devices with removable storage is available. All my CD, DVD drives and the card reader slots are displayed. But, no USB flash drives, nor USB external drives, when I attach them.

 

[Coup27]

Have you previously had or do you currently have any virtualisation software installed? vmware, virtualbox etc?

 

[tincansailor]

No, Never.

 

[BFG10K]

It’s probably assigned a drive letter that’s already in use. In disk management, change it to something that's definitely not in use (e.g. B or Z) to test if it appears.

 

[tincansailor]

It had assigned drive F:, which used to be an internal disk, no longer present. So, I suspected this may be the problem, and re-assigned it to drive Z:. No luck it still does not appear on the "My Computer" window.
I can see the drive on Disk Management, the Windows Media Player, and several other SW packages, and they are functional with that SW, but, the do not appear on "My Computer".

 

[Coup27]

Do they show up in safe mode?

 

[tincansailor]

No...in Safe mode the "My Computer" screen still shows no indication of the USB device. Disk management and Device Manager both see the drive as soon as it is attached. It also appears on the "Devices and Printers" window.