IT Question about USB stick

[elgordo38]

I have a 128GB Cruzer USB stick and for some reason my computer and 2 others in the household refuse to read it. It will not show up in the left hand column that show the other drives. I have tried Google for an answer and come up with nothing nada. I of course am 76 years of age with limited computer skills soooo I am asking has anyone else encountered this and found a solution. It is rather an expensive stick and I hate to loose it. I understand these sticks can be rebuilt is that an option.

[MiclB]

Maybe it just doesn't have an auto-start function. Try clicking 'my computer' and it might poop up with the other drives

[manarak]

question: have these computers been able to read that stick in the past and how old are these computers?

I've had the case of older card readers only being able to read CF cards up to 4GB

[CharlieH]

Wrong forum

MOVED

[rhythmworx]

you using windows xp?

[manarak]

Instructions

1
Plug the drive into a USB port that you know is working on a separate computer to make sure that the port itself is not causing the problem. Place the drive back into the original USB port if it remains undetectable on another system.

2
Open the Start menu and click on "My Computer" to bring up a new window that lists all of the drives connected to your computer. Take note of the letters assigned to the drives connected to your computer. Click on the blue button at the top left end of the window labeled "Map a Network Drive." Click "Continue" if a second window pops up asking for your permission to open the new menu.

3
Click the "Drive" button at the top of the new window. Select a drive letter from the drop-down menu that is not already in use, such as "Z" or "M." Click on the "Browse" button and locate the USB flash drive that your computer hasn't been detecting. Click on the drive and then click the "OK" button.

4
Click the "Finish" button to close the window and map the USB flash drive to your computer. Restart the computer and then return to the "My Computer" menu and check to see if the USB flash device is usable. Navigate to the Start menu if the device still isn't working properly, and open Control Panel.

5
Click the "Administrative Tools" link in the Control Panel menu. Click "Continue." Double-click the "Computer Management" link at the top of the menu. Click the "Disk Management" button at the left side of the window to bring up a list of drives on the computer. Right-click the USB flash drive and choose the "Format" option. Click "Start" and wait for the formatting process to finish. Restart the computer and then attempt to use the USB flash drive again. Note that formatting the USB drive will erase any data contained on it.

[RichCor]

When you plug a USB device into a Computer Port the Operating System attempts to detect, recognize and possibly load a specialized driver to interact with the device.

Have you used this 128GB Cruzer USB stick in a system before? Have you tried using it in another USB port?

If the instruction that manarak don't work, then see if the OS is even detecting the USB device by looking at your Device Manager.

So, if this is a Windows OS system,

Insert the 128GB Cruzer USB Memory Stick into an available USB Port.

If you have a START MENU, click on the "Search Program and Files" and type DEVICE MANAGER

Alternatively you can right-click on your COMPUTER icon and select PROPERTIES, then

Select to open Device Manager

If these notifications show up, try reading this help page:

PC Advisor co.uk: How to troubleshoot unrecognized USB sticks

[Somtamnication]

One poster has already asked the OP what OS he is using.

That will help us a great deal to help you.

The older operating systems will not see the newer usb sticks, nor see a 3.0 usb stick. I assume the 120 gig usb stick is usb version 3.0?

And, does the stick work on other computers?

[lopburi3]

Believe Cruzer opens as a normal letter hard drive rather than as a normal thumb drive so be sure to check there.

Edit: check under "Hard Disk Drive" area - not "other". This type of drive does not require removal command - just insert and take out at will.

[MJCM]

Excellent replies in this thread.

Just some links:

Knowledge Base from Sandisk

http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10/session/L2F2LzEvdGltZS8xNDEzMDczODA1L3NpZC80NmtBY0U0bQ%3D%3D

Very interesting info (maybe)

NOTE: We have a few reports that applications for mobile devices such as Samsung KIES and HTC Sync may prevent the USB flash drives being recognized correctly. You may need to turn the application off for the USB drive to be recognized by your PC. Should this not resolve the issue you might need to close the background process of the application or uninstall the application for the drive to be recognized.

Also please note:

Operating Systems supported by Cruzer drives:
Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2,Windows 2000 SP4.

[aarn]

In my experience, usb sticks 32GB+ may take a long time to be 'read' by older/slower computers.

I would become impatient, start doing other stuff, and the usb stick then became unusable without

undertaking techy actions (like creating a new MSDOS partition table, then reformatting as FAT32).

May I humbly suggest to eigordo(19)38 to make do temporarily with a couple of 8Gb sticks,

and get a computer savvy friend to investigate further the 128Gb usb. Cheers, AA

[kkerry]

Where did you buy your SD 128GB Cruzer from? Reason I ask is there are a lot of large size (128gb+) fake San Disk flash drives sold in Thailand. I have a Transcend USB 3.0 128GB drive, works in every (less than 5 years old) computer and TV I have tried so far. If you have an very old computer or you're using a less than original version of Windows then this could also be the problem.

[kkerry]

This is what you should be seeing in Device Manager.

[RKASA]

Well because of sh-- internet today I will post this for the forth time

Check storage devices and see if it shows - PVR's and other things can change a drives format - I get this all the time. Delete the partitions - make new NTFS or fat32 and format it.

[chrisinth]

@ elgordo38

You have had some good replies to this subject, hope you understand them all. But, as previously stated, need some additional information.

What operating system are you using?

Have you proved your 128GB Cruzer on any other computer and do you have any data on it?

Have you proved the USB port you are trying to use, ie, will it work with another flash drive or any other USB device?

A slight variation on manaraks excellent instructions in post #6 ( http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/767598-it-question-about-usb-stick/?p=8519762 ), item 5:

Click the "Administrative Tools" link in the Control Panel menu. Click "Continue." Double-click the "Computer Management" link at the top of the menu. Click the "Disk Management" button at the left side of the window to bring up a list of drives on the computer. Right-click the USB flash drive and choose the "Format" option. Click "Start" and wait for the formatting process to finish. Restart the computer and then attempt to use the USB flash drive again. Note that formatting the USB drive will erase any data contained on it.

When you open Disk Management, you will see something similar to this (this is a screen from Windows 7 Pro) Disk 0 is the laptop hard drive with its partitions and Disk 1 is the example flash drive (in this case a Lexar 64GB drive)

If you can see your drive:

Right click on the flash drive and select Change drive letters and paths. Select a drive letter that is not in use and click OK. Leave this for a moment and check your My Computer and see if the drive letter change is recognized.

If it is still not recognized, and you have any data on the flash drive backed up, go back to the disk management screen, right click and select Format. From the options, select FAT32 and quick format and click OK. Note: this will delete anything on the drive.

If the quick format doesn't work, try the full format; this will get rid of everything including if for some reason the flash drive was set to Active.

If the flash drive is not shown in the disk management screen, then try the above steps, formatting to FAT32, on a computer that does recognize the drive. Also at this point, make a backup of any data that is on the drive...........

[h90]

First thing is to plug it in different ports of all computers you have.

I noticed: that some ports make sometimes problems when they are old and have bad connection or corrosion.

And they aren't all equal.

Where did you buy it. There are fakes around and relabeled one. You can make a 32 GB be a 128 GB and it MAY work well as long as you don't go over 32 GB, but it complete fails if you use more of it.

If you bought it at invadeit, I am sure you could send it to them and they check if it works on their computer and send it back.

76 year old, no problem The only problem the old people believe that computer act logic.....they don't