Windows 7 USB jump drives unusable with Windows7

[JillB]

My laptop, an HP Pavilion dv7-1120em (Intel Centrino 2), originally running Vista Home and upgraded to Windows7 Home Premium (32 bits) in December, stopped showing my USB jump drives about a month and a half after the upgrade. In the beginning, I had only one jump drive and, when it became "invisible", I bought another which functioned normally for about a week before becoming invisible too. The second jump drive is, however, seen in the Drive Manager (I hope this is the correct term; I'm using a French system) and I can explore its contents with the Drive Manager even though I can't copy to or from the jump drive (the copying fails). Furthermore, the two jump drives work perfectly on a Windows7 (64 bits) machine, another one under XP as well as on my own laptop when I boot to a Ubuntu CD. Does anyone know of a solution? Thank you in advance.

 

[cybercore]

The second jump drive is, however, seen in the Drive Manager (I hope this is the correct term; I'm using a French system) and I can explore its contents with the Drive Manager even though I can't copy to or from the jump drive (the copying fails).

Did you try right-clicking on the usb-drive > security > change permissions?

How to Change Access Privileges & Permissions on Your Computer | eHow.com

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Reformatting to FAT32 eliminates the necessity to take ownership.

 

[JillB]

Thank you for answering. Unfortunately, the two jump drives are already formatted to FAT32, and I cannot access the properties windows anyway since they are not recognized in "Computer". If you have any other suggestions, I'd be delighted to hear them.

 

[busydog]

My laptop, an HP Pavilion dv7-1120em (Intel Centrino 2), originally running Vista Home and upgraded to Windows7 Home Premium (32 bits) in December, stopped showing my USB jump drives about a month and a half after the upgrade. In the beginning, I had only one jump drive and, when it became "invisible", I bought another which functioned normally for about a week before becoming invisible too. The second jump drive is, however, seen in the Drive Manager (I hope this is the correct term; I'm using a French system) and I can explore its contents with the Drive Manager even though I can't copy to or from the jump drive (the copying fails). Furthermore, the two jump drives work perfectly on a Windows7 (64 bits) machine, another one under XP as well as on my own laptop when I boot to a Ubuntu CD. Does anyone know of a solution? Thank you in advance.

What has worked for me in this situation is to go to Device Manager and uninstall all of your USB Hubs and Controllers and let Win7 re-detect them after a reboot and re-install the drivers.

 

[JillB]

Thank you for the suggestion. I tried this, including deleting things out of the (again, this is a translation from my French version) Stock Volume container. When I rebooted, nothing had changed. Win7 doesn't re-detect my USB jump drives (no info-bubble, no presence in "Computer". One drive continues to be visible in the Drive Manager, and the other (a Cruzer) prevents the Drive Manager from loading the drives; the error message is "Loading disk configuration information", and it just never progresses. Would reinstalling Windows accomplish anything? If so, what is the downside of such a move? Thank you again.

 

[cybercore]

Would reinstalling Windows accomplish anything?

Not necessarily, it will not guarantee resolving any hardware incompatibilities, especially if you've had this problem since or shortly after you installed Windows 7.

In the beginning, I had only one jump drive and, when it became "invisible", I bought another which functioned normally for about a week before becoming invisible too.

I sugget you unplug all USB devices first, then try the USB jump drive again.

 

[JillB]

I've been away so didn't answer. Anyway, I did try unplugging all USB devices but it made no difference. I really don't know where to go from here. Now my built-in card reader is not working either.

 

[Dhitch]

When you upgraded, did you download and install the drivers from the HP support site or did you let windows 7 put it's drivers in. If you let windows 7 do it you might want to try the official driver set from HP.

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I would try installing their chipset driver and card reader driver.

 

[JillB]

Thanks for the further suggestion. I installed the drivers but nothing has changed. I'm wondering now if I'll ever get my laptop back to working properly!

 

[JillB]

Not only do the drives function on another PC, but they also function on my laptop when running Linux!

 

[JillB]

Thanks for the suggestion. Should I delete all of them, or just one specific kind?

 

[JillB]

Ok, I went into safe mode and deleted (uninstalled) all the USB root hubs. I still can't see my flash drives. Can a reinstall of Windows work from an upgrade disk? I didn't buy the full version...

 

[JillB]

Thank you - I'll definitely try this, but in a few days as I need my computer right now!