Windows 7 Empty USB drives are not shown in Computer window

[geoyar]

Hi,

I have a problem: my empty USB drives suddenly stop show in Computer window of my Win 7 Pro SP1 PC.
If I insert, say, flash USB drive in the USB slot, it is immediately displayed in the window, and all works just fine. I remove it, and the icon vanishes.

In Folder Options I have 'Show all folders' checked, and 'Hide empty drive...' unchecked. In registry,
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Explorer\Advanced has Default value not set; unchecked value is zero, checked is one. shell32.dll is in its right folder.
So I do not know why the empty USB slots are not shown.

Any help?

 

[Neemobeer]

If it isn't formatted you may need to go into disk management and initialize it first then format it.

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Does it do this on a different Win7 or later computer as well??

<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>

 

[Jimbo22]

As far as I can remember...on all my PC's towers and laptop.....running 7/8.1/10 never showed the ports unless they were being used. I didn't care for the option to show all drives/ports.

 

[geoyar]

If it isn't formatted you may need to go into disk management and initialize it first then format it.

I am talking about normal, formatted USB flash drives with folders and files on them. By a way, not formatted drives should be shown also, otherwise how you can format them?

 

[geoyar]

Does it do this on a different Win7 or later computer as well??

<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>

I saw empty USB drives on my PC before.

 

[geoyar]

As far as I can remember...on all my PC's towers and laptop.....running 7/8.1/10 never showed the ports unless they were being used. I didn't care for the option to show all drives/ports.

It was because in the Folder Options (In Control Panel) default setting is 'Hide empty removable drives in Computer Window. In theory, you can uncheck this check box in 'Folder Options\View' dialog box and see them. My problem is that now this and direct changing of register's entries does not work.

 

[Jimbo22]

I am talking about normal, formatted USB flash drives with folders and files on them. By a way, not formatted drives should be shown also, otherwise how you can format them?

Then yes....has all ways showed and worked for me on all my systems.

 

[Jimbo22]

You may have some corrupt or missing system files. Try doing a system repair with the install media.

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

You still didn't answer us about attempting this on a modern-era different computer from the one you are having the problem with. You haven't explored all the suggestions we gave you. It's quite likely you have a virus/malware or a failing hardware component on that computer such as a faulty RAM stick(s) or Hard Drive. If you are not comfortable with doing the necessary steps to test your own hardware, then do the test with your flash drives on a 2nd computer and see if you get the same result. If your result is the same; then your flash drives could be corrupted, which does happen after about 5 years or so. They don't last forever.

<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>