No Drive Letter for USB or Firewire Drive
When you connect your USB or IEEE 1394 (Firewire) storage device (hard disk or USB drive) to your computer, Windows will pop up a notification messages that showing USB Mass Storage Device, and then Disk Drive was found. However, you just simply can’t access the drive, and there is no automatic “Autoplay” prompt too, if you enable it.
The USB or Firewire storage drive doesn’t show up (not available and not accessible) in Windows Explorer or My Computer window, although it has been detected, even if the drive has been used properly before in the same computer. In the Device Manager, everything including USB Hub and USB Root Hub, shows working properly. In some cases, it also shows a USB or Firewire storage drive attached and the drive it is working, and the USB or Firewire drive will appear in Disk Management of Computer Management in Microsoft Management Console (MMC) too.
Another symptom to the problem is when you insert the USB or Firewire drive, a “Safely Remove Hardware” icon will appear in Windows notification area (system tray). When you double-click on the icon, the drive appears in the list, but when you display the details of the disk (by double-click on the drive or select the drive then click on Stop), there is no drive letter attached to the drive.
The cause for this problem is that all drive letters are already assigned to other devices or mapped network drives, making no additional drive letters available. Or it may be caused by the drive letter that previously assigned to the drive has been taken up by a mapped network drive or other storage device.
Resolution is to disconnect mapped network drives or other storage devices, freeing up a drive letter or the previously assigned letter to assign to the additional storage device. If you can see the drive in MMC Disk Management, right click on it, and select Change Drive Letter and Paths, then click on Change. Select a drive letter that is unused and click OK. The USB or IEEE 1394 drive can now be accessible.
It’s also possible to change drive letter to a free one via registry.
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Entries (RSS)
November 22nd, 2007 04:36
Ok, I wnet into MMC and saw that the drive was mapped to E, but had no partition info. I then selected it and chose the drive mapping and told it E again. It then reloaded, I could see that it know acknowledged the drive, so I left MMC, disconnected the drive from usb prompt, reconnected the drive and it now fully registers as E and the other drive now register as E appropriately. THIS IS A BUG IN W2K3 Server 64 bit! No reason I should have to go through those steps, if it acknowledged it had a drive on E, it should see the partitions!
November 22nd, 2007 03:43
Awesome! Worked great! The only thing I can’t understand is it had been assigned to F: but nothing else had. I switched it to B: and it recognized.
November 8th, 2007 15:53
[...] is all 26 letters in alphabet has been used, but this situation is rare and unlikely. There is a solution to USB or FireWire drive not showing in system error. However, the disconnect conflicted storage device to free up the drive letter fix may not [...]
August 28th, 2007 20:11
I have the same problem after upgrading to XP SP2 from SP1. USB drives and Flash cards in reader, do not appear in Explorer. I can assign them a drive letter in Computer Management but they still do not show up. Sandisk Mp3 plyer show up in Explorer though. Is this a security thing with SP2?
August 14th, 2007 23:23
I have PowerQuest’s Partition magic, and when I opened it up i could see the drive and it said the letter was “*”, so i tryed to change it to “F” (its original letter) and it failed. I closed the program, reopened it, i then tryed to change the letter to “J”, this worked, i then told it to change it back to “F” and wahla! my drive now works again with the correct letter. I suppose this may be an expensive fix if you do not own Partition Magic, but if you can buy it, it’s a good investment.
The exact place i found it was Right Clicking the partition, going to “Advanced” then selecting “Change Drive Letter…”.
Right Click -> Advanced –> Change Drive Letter…
Hope that helps some of you.
July 31st, 2007 22:59
Thanks a lot!, this advice worked fine for me.
July 14th, 2007 14:26
On more add here. Some files from last update have atributes from upcoming MS SP3 pack realise. Did someone notice that? Any sugestions?
July 14th, 2007 11:33
Just a most anojing problem what i see for last several hours, try Googling solutions.
just 2 day ego all my USB flash drives working OK
for almost year, without problem on same system.
I did hell update (LAST one from MS) and now I am stack with same problem. They just stop appear in My Computer in autrecognise mode. I am got weird
assignig on drive letters, i mean on existing stuff. Was able fix that deleting some strings from registry, but still not able relaunch auto recognition. Paradox… You can see that from device manager, from Control panel blaa.. blaa. but cant just get them in Win Explorer. Worse… System was not changed for months, nothings malisiuos installed, nothings was done with config, but shitt happined. That hell update from MS dated by 07.10.2007 include some UandPlay secuirity update KB. Really not understand what was issue. I Delete shit but system stil not recognise Flash drives ( I mean assign them in Explorer). Now i look at hundreds post all around WEB and cleraly think MS pushing users toward VISTA on purpose, bugging and never have clear explanation whats going on. I sow that on clients computers. And fix that just wipe out HD and do clean install. Now I am facing same problem on my veryOWN system and feel comlitely stupid. Many fixes what you see on WEB post seems like a mazoxistic Expirements try to torture you Mashine, to fix bullshit. In case People dont care, Iam agree. In my case Iam CARE. Just repit, nothings was changed for last 2 days and i got problem. Only things what was done it REGULAR SECOND TUESDAY EVERY MONTH UPDATE FROM MS. Hell with them if it ploted on purpose.
Sure I am will find problem, have some ideas, but just ask guys, dont try destroy you highly customed mashines to solve this bulshit. At last if you not crewup already your USB Flash Drives still be recognised on boot. It inconvient, take a time, instead Hook and See, but in my case only way now.
Will be back with my research on problem. Peace to all.
July 1st, 2007 09:58
I just had a similar problem with a Sony IEEE-1394 DVD-RW. I had seen the too many drive letters problem before, in my case, there should have been one left, but it was not picking up my firewire drive.
I went into Device Manager and saw that the DVD/CD was not listed in with the CDRoms, but with the 1394. I uninstalled it, powered off the drive, restarted the drive, and told the system to Scan for Hardware Changes. Voila, it detected it again, this time as a CDRom and added it to my list of drives with a new drive letter. (I’ve had to use a similar techinque with USB before with similar success).
June 14th, 2007 23:49
I have 2 2k3 r2 x64 servers. I have 7 Maxtor onetouch3 drives. For 3 months, I have had no problems using the drives on drive E, changing them out as backup drives once a week. Suddenly, neither machine will see these drives properly. They appear to USB ok, (It gives me the icon to remove them) but when I look in disk management, they are coming up as basic partitions with no label. Plug them into my 2k3 r2 32 bit server or 2k server, they mount and partitions have labels and show as NTFS. No drive mapped on E. I was able to use them by leaving it on the 32 server, sharing the drive and mapping it to E on the 64 server.
Did Microsoft just do something to cause this?
June 13th, 2007 22:22
Thank you for your explanation on missing USB drives! For the longest time I could not detect a USB device on my computer. After reading your article, I realised that my USB SD card reader was assigned to the same location as a network drive.
I simply changed the USB assignment to an unused drive under “Disk Management”, and voila – I now have access to my photos on the SD card.
Thank you for your simple and so very elegant solution.
June 1st, 2007 00:28
i have the same problem, but if i assign letter from computer management, i can access this usab flash frougth the command promt, but no disk i my computer
May 24th, 2007 17:14
Hi everyone, [I have no solution, only ...]
USB worked for me for long time without any problem until today. I have some other problem with WindowsXP, so I inovated the Windows XP (boot up WinXP installation CD and select “R” for inovate – programs and settings then are kept).
Now if I connect USB device, the green icon “safety remove …” is added into traybar, but no disk letter is assigned for this.
My friend do the same (inovate xp) month ago a now has the same problem. I tried everything what I found on net, but without success.
So what i can recommend for everyone is “Do not inovate Windows XP!”.
May 22nd, 2007 04:40
I recently upgraded my motherboard and CPU. (So, same installation of Windows XP SP2).
Where before, my iPod and Sony Video Cam would show up as drives when I connected them to the USB ports, now I am getting the same behavior as described here.
I plug in either device, Windows detects they are attached, claiming a “USB Mass Storage Device” has been attached. When browsing them in the “Safely Remove Devices” dialog, they even show that they are iPod and Sony Camera respectively.
However, I am unable to view them as hard drives in My Computer or in any other way, and iTunes does not detect the iPod as well.
The board definitely has USB 2.0 support, and this support is enabled in the BIOS.
I am not out of drive letters (having only C: for internal hard drive, D: for DVD-ROM, and Z: for a network drive).
Does anyone have any clue what might be going on here?
May 3rd, 2007 20:58
I’ve noticed an odd bug in Windows Vista (both 32 and 64 bit versions) that is completely dependent on how much memory you have in your system. If you have 2gb or less in your system, Windows Vista will recognize your USB drives without a problem. BUT… if you have over 2gb of memory, Vista will fail to recognize not only USB drives, but most other USB devices such as software dongles, cameras and media players. The only fix is to turn off USB 2.0 support on the motherboard, which is (in my mind) not a fix at all, but a broken problem only being made worse. So for now, Vista seems to be borked in that respect.
April 19th, 2007 14:32
Thanks it worked…first time i encountered such a thing..
April 11th, 2007 12:45
Thanks a lot. It worked for me. I am having a Motherboard, which is atleast 4 years old. When I have installed Windows Server 2003 R2, I worried that I might not get proper drivers. For USB2.0, there seems to be no USB2.0 drivers for Windows Server 2003 R2. The available ones for Windows Server 2000. In case, the media was listed properly. However, the volumes were missing. I have tried downloading the USB drivers and installed them. It was always the same result.
Now, after trying your suggestion, it worked and the volumes are displayed properly. Once again, Thanks a log.
April 10th, 2007 00:12
When the drive doesn’t show up at all, improper jumper settings on the drive is usually the culprit. Double check that its set for MASTER (M). Cable Select (CS) doesn’t usually work for USB IDE controllers.
March 17th, 2007 22:20
Mine is the same problem but only ,but the usb drive doesnt show up in the disk management also ..so i dont know whats wrong ..any idea’s ?
February 18th, 2007 13:33
Boss thanks a ton because i spend one hour on this problem and searching solution on web but evearyone offering just stupid solution but you just straight to the point explain problem precisely and it took only 2 min to solve my problem, as soon as i disconnect one mapped drive my usb drive is ready for me in my explorer thanks again.
February 17th, 2007 01:25
Sir,
First of all,Thank you very much for your kind information.When i tried to change its drive letter,it did but again i could not see under Mycomputer.I humbly request you to assist me fix my problem.
Thanking you.
February 13th, 2007 10:37
My USB Hard drive shows up in Disk Management. The properties show it is full. Drive letter not assigned. I use this between the 3 or four machines. The Win2k works fine. The XP or Win2003 server don’t. I assigned letter M to other USB hard drive. Then took that out by using eject icon. Put a different USB hard drive which works in Win2k. This drive will not get letter M. When tried to assign the letter, Disk Management will not. It wants to partition first. I have data on it. How can I get Win3K to assign letter without having to partition again and loose all the data?
February 11th, 2007 02:57
Check TweakUI… drive letters may not be checked off to allow display. I had same problem.
January 25th, 2007 00:30
Thanks for the writeup.
I had a client machine with this problem. After looking at disk managment I discovered that the client had an external HD plugged into the computer that used e: and f: mapping. I then discovered that the next drive letter G: was mapped to an unneeded network recsource. Once the g: map was disconnected the flash drive automatically showed up.
December 19th, 2006 23:45
I tried what you explained, but no luck in getting the drive letter appearing in explorer.
any other suggestions?