USB Geek Drive

[geowink]

Previously, when I inserted the drive it showed up in the menu. Now for some reason when I insert the drive, I here the beep which says the system ackowledges it BUT it no longer appears on the menu. I'm not sure what has happened. Has anyone had this happen? How do I fix it?
Thanks...

George

[Clo]

2geowink

Hello ! Welcome aboard !

Now for some reason when I insert the drive, I hear the beep which says the system ackowledges it BUT it no longer appears on the menu.

- I guess that you mean in the drive-list(s) ?
- Did you try to set the drive-bar to see if this is the same ?
- Do you see that drive in M$ Explorer ? If "Yes", with which drive-letter ?

A small screen shot could help (not on the board, it's disabled, but as a link to a server or an image-host…)

 Kind regards,
Claude
Clo

[geowink]

Thanks for the quick reply. Yes, we are talking about the drive-list. It shows my C and D drives, a CD drive, two network drives and total network drive. These have always been there. Before when I inserted the USB drive it just showed up, no problem. It does NOT appear in Explorer either which is really disturbing. I'm not sure what you meant by "setting the drive-bar."

George

[Sheepdog]

I assume your OS is Windows XP.

Can you remember if you had connected these network drives when the drive letter of the USB drive was displayed?

Windows sometimes assigns a particular drive letter to removable drives. When this letter later on is used by another drive (e.g. a network drive) you will not see the removable drive if you connect it again.

So maybe it helps to disconnect temporary the net-drives and then plug on your USB-Device. If that helps and you want to keep the previos letters for the net-drives you may open the drive management with

Code: Select all

%SystemRoot%\system32\diskmgmt.msc /s

and assign another drive letter to the USB drive. (Kontextmenu shows an item "Change Driveletters and ~paths" (translation from german)).

sheepdog

[Clo]

2geowink

It does NOT appear in Explorer either which is really disturbing.

That sounds bad…

- It's possible that the drive itself or rather a USB-slot be damaged, or some hardware in the PC related to… Try to connect it into another slot ?
- You might test this drive with another PC too, i.e. @ a friend's or so…

…I'm not sure what you meant by "setting the drive-bar." …

- I meant : display the drive-buttons instead the list(s), to see if this is a list issue - it seems it isn't now-
- You can see your whole drives without anything to open Configuration Menu >> Options >> Layout >> [x] Show drive-buttons and below for the two panels…

  KR
Claude
Clo

[Unjoanqualsevol]

2geowink

This is a bug on OS, related with maped network drives.
When an user plugs an USB device, then the OS looks for the first free drive, but It doesn't have in count the network drives, only takes in count the Floppies, CD/DVD drives Hard Disks and USB devices.

More info:
http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/tip/14875.html
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;297694

Perfect solution: It doesn't exist, blame Microsoft.

Partial solution 1 : by hand, as proposed Sheepdog.
Partial solution 2: by script, same as solution 1 but scripted.

See you later

[geowink]

I have previously had the USB drive show up along with the network drives. It came up nicely as "f" between "e" and "g." I have another PC (desktop) that works correctly. I even reloaded version 54a to see if that would make any difference - nope. I will try these suggestions and get back to you. THANK YOU...

George

[geowink]

Well, I removed the network letters I had, plugged in my USB drive and it works like it should. It was a problem of a, apparently, duplicate address. I believe TC should be able to figure out what the next letter should be. Any posssibility?

George

[Sheepdog]

I believe TC should be able to figure out what the next letter should be. Any posssibility?

George

Unfortunately it is Windows that does maintain drive letters. So TC can only use drives that are reportet by Windows. MAybe one could make a bug-report to Microsoft but I fear there will be no patch for XP since they want to sell Vista.

"Now you can use your USB-Dirve although the drive letter is in between reserved for a network drive. Windows Vista simply allocates another drive letter for your USB-Device"

(taken from the promotion screen whlie installing Vista)

So no chance to do it the easy way. If this occurs again,
1. unplug your USB-drive
2. disconnect your net-drives
3. plug on your USB Device - now you should see it
4. Assign another driveletter to the USB Device
5. connect the network drives.

Now, even after a restart or a reconnect the USB Device should be shown always.

sheepdog

[geowink]

Thanks. Leave it up to Microsoft to make things tough for us.

George

[ghisler(Author)]

Just assign your network drives top-down: Z:, Y:, X: etc., and you will not have any problems.