USB flash drive doesn't work in one computer

[dullard]

I have a Cruzier mini 128 MB USB disk. It has worked quite well for ~1.5 years now. The main computer I use it in at work had no problem with it. But all of the sudden, the computer won't recognize the disk - even though the disk works in all other computers. The USB power light turns on when blugged in - so it get power. The computer doesn't say it found new hardware, and the disk doesn't appear in the list of available drives.

Any ideas? It is Win XP Home if that matters.

 

[FlyingPenguin]

Did you try another USB port (the front ports are treated as a seperate device than the back ports - if you've been using it in the front, try putting it in the back - maybe the front ports went dead).

When you plug it in, do you see a "Safely remove hardware" icon appear on the taskbar by the clock? If so, open it and see is if a "USB Mass Storage Device" is listed. When you unplug the stick, it should disappear from the list.

If it appeared in there then plug the stick back in and right click My Computer, select Manage, open Disk Management. The stick should be listed at the lower right of the window. If it doesn't have a letter assigned to it, right click on it and assign it a drive letter.

If it doesn't appear in there then open Device Manager (while the stick is still plugged in) and see if there's a device with a yellow exclamation (might be a USB device, a disk drive, or an "Other" device). If so, right click on it and uninstall it. Pull the memory stick and then plug it back in and hopefully it'll recognize it.

I assume this is XP? Did this start happening recently? Worse case use system restore to roll your computer back to a restore point prior to the problem occuring. Remember that any files outside the My Documents folder will also revert to the condition they were in on that day. This is reversible - you can always restore back to where you started.

Hope this helps...

 

[dullard]

Thanks for the input, and sorry for me taking so long to reply.

To answer your questions:
[*]No there is not a "safely remove hardware" icon anymore. I used to get it when the drive worked on that computer, but not anymore.
[*]Yes I tried front and back ports. However, I didn't try all back ports. Now when I tried a different back port, I got an "new hardware found, installing USBHST DFU Adapter" message. That didn't help though, no disk drive appears and no "safely remove hardware" icon.
[*]No drive appears in My Computer.
[*]No devices with a yellow exclamation. The USBHST DFU Adapter appears and disappears with the device, but there is no exclamation next to it.

Yes it is XP, but no system restore is not enabled. There is virtually nothing to on the computer other than a few user settings that is different from the original, so I could always just restore the computer with the restore CD that it came with. I was just hoping to avoid all that hassle.

I did just notice one thing though. USBHST DFU Adapter has a new driver: SCM Microsystems Inc. 2/18/2005 version 1.24.0.0. That date must have been right about the point it stopped working. I'll try looking around for a new driver.

 

[dullard]

Ok that was it. I rolled back that USBHST DFU Adapter driver and it found a USB Mass Storage Device driver from Microsoft 7/1/2001 version 5.1.2600.0. This works as usual.

Now the question is why would that other driver appear so I can prevent it from happening again?

 

[FlyingPenguin]

I would hazard a guess that it was installed by Windows Update. Microsoft occasionally offers driver updates, but I would avoid them like the plague.