We’d like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum.

This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are – or become – political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.

📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!

USB flash drive not recognised... .

I've only had this 2gb flash memory USB drive thing for about a week now and when I plugged it in today Windows told me that it couldn't recognise the device and maybe I should unplug it and try again. Which I did. Which didn't work... .

Do I have to throw it in the bin now? or is there a way to mend it...? Thanks... .

Comments

  • superscaper
    superscaper Posts: 13,369 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    What make is it? The cheap ones off chinese sellers off ebay are rubbish for example and wouldn't be surprising for them to fail, whereas a good brand will probably have some kind of guarantee of a few years. Will it allow you to reformat the drive?
    "She is quite the oddball. Did you notice how she didn't even get excited when she saw this original ZX-81?"
    Moss
  • David333
    David333 Posts: 743 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    What make is it? The cheap ones off chinese sellers off ebay are rubbish for example and wouldn't be surprising for them to fail, whereas a good brand will probably have some kind of guarantee of a few years. Will it allow you to reformat the drive?

    But if it won't recognise it, how can I reformat it...? It was a cheap one, but from ebuyer: a special offer a couple of weeks ago....
  • crox
    crox Posts: 371 Forumite
    Have you tried it in another machine?
  • Mizz_Pink
    Mizz_Pink Posts: 756 Forumite
    What version of Windows are using
    Most flash drives work without drivers under WinME / 2000/ XP / Vista
    I you are using Windows 98 then you will probably need drivers.

    Do you have another system or a friends system to plug it into?

    Also some are only USB 2.0 compatible

    Just a few thoughts to help you out.

    Ebuyer normally sell decent stuff and will change it if its faulty
    Just owe Dad £2500 for a new car
    :A

    Paid off car loan 22nd August 2009. :T
  • albertross_2
    albertross_2 Posts: 8,932 Forumite
    Do you use the safely remove icon in the bottom corner before you pull it out?
    Ever get the feeling you are wasting your time? :rolleyes:
  • David333
    David333 Posts: 743 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Paul_R wrote: »
    This sounds like a drive conflict. You might like to try Start>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Disk Management and change the drive letter that your USB drive is allocated. Use a high letter (like X:) and it won't conflict with your other stuff.

    Right click on the right drive and change drive letter.

    Works for me.

    The USB drive isn't listed under disk management, but thank you anyway!
  • David333
    David333 Posts: 743 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Hey,

    Thank you for the replies. Twelve hour days at work has meant the USB drive issue has taken a back seat recently! Anyway, I tried it in a laptop and it works fine, so presumably that means that the problem is with my computer. I don't have another USB drive but I plugged the USB cable to my printer into the USB port and it worked, so the problem can't be with the USB port itself. I also tried the USB drive on another USB port on my computer and it still didn't work... .
  • savingstill
    savingstill Posts: 89 Forumite
    This happened to my son. We bought Belkin Hi-speed USB 2.0
    5 port PCI card.
    My husband found it OK to install & son is happy!


    Hope this helps
    planing for the future, living for today ;)
  • John_Gray
    John_Gray Posts: 5,845 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Occasionally you can find that if you plug a USB Flash Drive into one USB port it doesn't work, but when you plug it into another USB port on the same machine it does.

    This is often called The Law of Sheer Cussedness, and rarely is there a rational explanation...

    John
  • longforgotten
    longforgotten Posts: 1,093 Forumite
    I bought an Integral memory stick and it did not work in my computer as it kept searching for a 'driver' but could not find one suitable. I had to download a driver off the internet and then my memory stick worked.

    I bought another memory stick for work, it even said that there was no need for a driver, but that one didn't work for me either saying yet again it could not find a driver! It was a well known make too. Works on workmates computer, a younger computer than mine, running on windows xp, so they've got it now.

    Hope you've got yours to work .
This discussion has been closed.
Meet your Ambassadors

🚀 Getting Started

Hi new member!

Our Getting Started Guide will help you get the most out of the Forum

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 352.1K Banking & Borrowing
  • 253.6K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 454.2K Spending & Discounts
  • 245.2K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 600.8K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 177.5K Life & Family
  • 259K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 16K Discuss & Feedback
  • 37.7K Read-Only Boards

Is this how you want to be seen?

We see you are using a default avatar. It takes only a few seconds to pick a picture.