Usb hard drive device not recognized windows 7

Does Windows 7 just not work with external drives? It's frustrating. Click Start , click Run , type sysdm. Click the Hardware tab. Click the Device Manager button. Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers. Right-click every device under the Universal Serial Bus controllers node, and then click Uninstall to remove them one at a time. Restart the computer, and then reinstall the USB controllers.

Restarting the computer should install the drivers automatically. Plug in the removable USB storage device, and then test to make sure that the issue is resolved.

Step 7: Install latest chipset driver. For this I would recommend you to contact the system manufacturer. Was this reply helpful? Yes No. Sorry this didn't help. Step 3. Check if the computer detects the USB device and assigns it a drive letter. Is your computer's USB port not working properly?

Check the available USB ports one by one and see whether it is a computer hardware problem or a problem with the device itself. If changing to another port solves the problem, then there is something wrong with the previous port. You can give up on that broken port, or send your computer for repair. If the USB drivers are unstable or damaged, this method removes those drivers. Know that uninstalling the drivers can cause all USB ports to become dysfunctional.

Do this for all USB drivers one by one. Restart your PC. Give this method a go and see if it works for you. Navigate to the "Driver" tab and choose " Update Driver ". Step 4. When asked how do you want to search for driver software, there are two options. This way uses an automatic update by Windows. When this is finished, all you need to do is to disconnect the USB device, restart the computer, and reconnect the USB device again.

Windows will install the latest driver for you. When you choose this option, you need to continue with the pop-up "let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer. From the list, select Generic USB hub, which is normally the only choice.

Click "Next" and then Windows will install the driver for you. In the same path as update the driver, roll back to the previous driver when the error didn't occur. The changes made on the computer power and the device driver should take effect, and your USB device will no longer report issues. If this is not the case, try the other three methods one by one. In this case, changing the USB selective suspend settings could help.

In the Choose or customize a power plan window, click Change plan setting. Most computers have multiple root hubs so you can share the data bus across multiple devices. Open Device Manager, find the Universal Serial Bus controllers option and single-click it to expand it.

Only Microsoft Windows 7 can't see it own child. It will show a list. Right click that and. Hope everyone had a wonderful Turkey Day and that y'all aren't all wiped out from standing in line at your retailer of choice all night! I have a similar but slightly different issue with W7. I'm using a Bytecc USB Adapter See here if, perchance, you're not familiar with this doo-dad to see what is on a couple of old IDE hard drives and to determine whether to use them in another project.

I tried the solutions in this thread with no positive results. Rather, what I'm facing is in Disk Management, where my only option is to initialize the disk which, of course, defeats the purpose of my "experiment. But I am a little worried that it'll just be "same problem, different cable" and that I spent the afternoon rearranging my desk to crack open my case My IOMEGA external hard drive does swith the light on and is working because I can feel it vibrating a little and heats the normal way as if it were working like it used to.

I jut swithed it of to 0 and then back to 1 because I was safely removing a pen drive and didn't want to remove the wrong one so I did that and when I turned it on to 1 again nothing happened. The light switched on and you can feel it working and launching xcept not on the PC.. I'm using Windows I have all my pictures and all my important documents on it!

What if I have no clue where I have that CD that came with the drive.. Cannot just assign a dif. I can see the light on and feel it vibrating like it's working and like it's launching but nothing happens not even as an unknown device..

My Toshiba GB portable hard drive is not showing up. Have tried different option mentioned in this forum. The data that is there is very important, and I will like to save it.

Can you tell with the above information if the data is there and is not lost. And also I havent tried the uninstall option of the drive, because I am not sure if doing this I will definitely loose the data. Try to unplugg the disk, restart the computer and plug in again. U can uninstall the driver, this no affect the data. After restart, and plug in, driver reinstalled it self. Or try to use any disk partition software to see if data still there, or plug in another computer, or download a linux boot cd and restart with them to see the data.

Note your hard drive will get formatted. I installed the drive into a nexStar 3 external 2. First, it took forever to get the enclosure to be recognized, at all. I had to take the USB 2. Yet, there was no disk drive identified in Computer. I followed the advice given by Lionel B. The happy ending is I followed your advice and, after a few trials and errors, I was able to create a dynamic?

Manually right-clicking on the drive here, and selecting Change Drive Letters and Paths A recent hardware or software change might have installed a file that is signed incorrectly or damaged, or that might be malicious software from an unknown source. Code 52 i cant see my usb drive to perform format can anyone help me I have a similar problem with my WD1.

It was working great on Win7 64bit pro for 12 months. Then it just stopped working. There has been a power outage during a thunder storm, not sure if this is when it stopped working. Can see it in device manager, but not in windows explorer or in powerdesk. When I open Computer Management and go to disk management, it comes up with a message to initialize the disk.

It is not listed in the top section of disk management, but is in the lower section. It is described as unknown, not initialized and as GB under Disk 2. Where it should have a drive letter, it just gives Right clicking on it only gives properties or help. In properties, under Volume it lists:.

Disk: Disk 2. Type: Unknown. Status: Not Initialized. Capacity: MB. How can I initialize it, or do I have to use partition software? I really want to recover the data on it and would prefer not to reformat it until then.

I took ownership of the folder, assigned myself full access then pasted your suggested usbstor. To those who use this suggestion - you may find that the USB device still does not show in "My Computer".

In my case, the issue was my PC. I'm having the same problem on my work computers. Frustrating to no end with something as simple as plugging in a USB. I see all of the answers people offer just follow steps 1 - 8 and if that doesn't work try steps 1a-6b and if that doesn't work This is ridiculous.

It worked for me. None of the solutions in this post work for me. Next I tried a another memory still and it showed up as unknown device. Once DevicePath was set correctly all memory sticks automatically installed themselves.

At least I only lost Gigabytes of work, files, family video and photos over the past 18 months. In the Computer Management window, under Storage, click on Disk Management to see a list of drives connected to your machine. Right-click on the drive and select Change Drive Letter and Paths.

Now click on the Change button…. You can select from a list of drive letters to rename it. Pick a letter toward the end of the alphabet for best results. You will be prompted with a warning dialog making sure you want to change the drive letter…click Yes.

You will also see the drive in Computer now and be able to access the files and programs from it. When plugged in , it detect as local disk in my computer but it didnt display how many gb used and the blue bar at all.

I tried to chkdsk on command prompt with adminstrator and it is stuck at The type of file system is NTFS. When i go to disk management under computer management it is stuck at Connecting to Virtual Disk Service. When i unplugged , chkdsk and disk management works Can someone solve this problem please? For those of you shipping files between Mac and Windows machines: Mac formatted drives should work fine in Win7, but hey, if they don't Tried the usbstor.

Somewhere along the way I spotted the option to reformat the disk, which led me to believe that perhaps, contrary to common sense, my Win7x64 install was unable to read this disc because it was Mac formatted. It's free but only lets you read files.

That said, I'm very happy since it works like a charm, even offering to rename filenames containing characters Windows doesn't support. Hi, After reading many forums and experiences, I have come to what I think is the best option available. By now I have no doubts that the defects concern a failure of the hard drive material poor quality and is a common theme among, as far as I know, all LaCie drives I am owner of various products of this brand - and on my way out of this firm.

So, for you souls to happen to be stuck with it and the only thing you want for now is to recover your valuable data, let's focus on that and once achieved, please get yourself another drive for pretty much any other brand available except this LaCie B-S! Control Panel 2. Administrative Tools 3. Computer Management 4. Storage - Disk Management 5. Select your LaCie hard drive from the bottom half of the pane probably Disk 1 6.

Right click, Properties 'Change drive letters and paths', and add a letter, e. Download HandyRecovery tool: www. Let the program scan for the LaCie hard drive and once finalised, select your data to be recovered from the left pane. The main point here is that once a letter is added, you will be able to see LaCie drive K for instance, in Windows Explorer, but you will notice it is empty, no contents. The trick is that at least it shows as a drive in Windows, which is exactly what HandyRecovery needs to initiate the scanning of the drive's surface.

Worst case scenario, you will not be able to recover any file but at least you will see a full directory tree view of the drive, full list of files, directories and its contents, i. That's it. Hope you will find this useful. Sergio London, UK. Only difference was that after I plugged in the USB storage I had to go to device manager and update the driver. Thank you very much Ivan.

After scouring the web for days searching and trying everything, this finally resolved my USB driver install problems. Any relatively new USB device would not install the driver properly and would fail. I also noticed the file was inappropriately named, usbstor. Not sure why or how that happened.

I copied and pasted your text above, created my new usbstor. Worked like a charm. Nothing worked. I let my computer sit around 30 minutes to more, this was so I did not have to do this again because I did not wait long enough. I also have the issue of the invisible disk, in Win 7 Pro I have spent a good deal of today on the manufacturer's site which proved to be no help.

The drive is less than two years old but isn't even mentioned. I have also followed and applied a great deal of the advice given above.

A big thanks to all of you. However I am still stuck. I have tested and proven my USB-2 cables. The disk itself works fine on four other PCs. I have checked out my on-board USB-2 ports with other devices. They all work fine. When I attach the device, the Windows message plays as the pop-up installation message displays. The installation completes successfully - or so it says. My drive appears in "Devices and Printers". I learn there that it is attached via an "Initio Default controller" - whatever that is.

However it does not appear in Device Manager when I look there. Until, that is I turn on "Show Hidden Devices". Then I can see it as a drive. I attempt to update divers, including with the tricks described earlier. When I switch off "Show Hidden Devices" it still appears in the list 'i.

As mentioned above. So I check out the drivers. All are supposedly up to date. What I do not have in Disk Management in this sea of perfection :- is any entry for my drive either in the top physical disk list or in the detailed boxes blow. A disk Rescan has no effect either. Clearly I have repeated all of this with many variants over the course of the day.

All to no avail. It searched for a while and then came up saying the driver wasn't digitally signed or something similar to that and was I sure I wanted to proceed. I said Yes and whammo It worked and I don't know how much to thank you. I have been toiling with this issue for quite some time. I was about to take it to a technician. You saved me Thank you so so much. I had a similar problem. I did about the same as Lionel with only some differences:. I Have had a few external hard drives and this seems a common problem once in a while - I'm no expert but logical thinking can get you places.

Luckily I never tossed those hard drives in the trash - that I thought were cooked or corrupted beyond repair. I have retrieved all my data from 5 so called corrupted USB hard disks this way. So it seems the interface circuit between the actual hard drive and the USB is the weak link. Not sure if the reason"s" are Microsoft Driver related or 3rd party related but good luck anyway. Have tried everything on here but still having a problem.

The hard drive on the 2TB desktop crashed but I had just made a full-image backup three days before using Norton Ghost So, I figure I'm home-free. The laptop still recognizes the Fantom just fine; the desktop "sees" the drive in either USB or eSATA mode , and the Computer Management app sees the drive, has assigned it a drive-letter, and if you click on "Properties" it shows the amount of disk space available, and other details.

I tried making it an "Active Partition", and it said it was active, but still unable to open it. When I plug it in and the dialogue says "Open Drive" all I get is a message that "It's inaccessible". I tried going into the Security Tab, taking "Ownership", setting the permissions to "Full Control", as well as checking all the other permissions.

Since the Ghost backup file on it is too huge to copy to the hardrive through the network-link to my laptop, and still have room to restore it, I'm up a creek. This worked for me on a 16Gb Lexar flash drive that didn't show up under "computer", but would show up in "devices and printers", and say it was working properly and needed no updated drivers, etc.

Now, when plugged in, it operates as intended and immediately offers the normal "Autoplay" window with it's various options, and shows as a drive F under "computer", as it should. One thing: on mine the "uninstall" screen never finished, and wouldn't allow cancel , but did disappear when I removed the drive. Drive then reinstalled properly when reinserted. I had a drive that was fine on other computers, but not one one of them, so I knew the drive was fine.

I could see it in 'Devices and Printers', but could not access it. Instead of just removing the filters, I deleted all but the first several numbered sub-directories under that key there were 80, I left the first 20, also don't touch the 'properties' subfolder. Then uninstalled the device in device manager, rebooted and let the machine re-install the device software.

I had tried just about everything else, so for those who can't find a resolution, you should try Linda's suggestion, or if you don't see the 'filters' remove the key subfolders. Office Office Exchange Server. Not an IT pro? Windows Client. Sign in. United States English. Ask a question. Quick access. Search related threads. Remove From My Forums.

Answered by:. Archived Forums. Windows 7 Hardware Compatibility. Sign in to vote. I have seen other posts about this all without a solution- could I have missed the solution - if so please forgive this posting and please point me in the right direction. If there hasn't been a solution posted and you know how to solve this issue I am very interested. The Windows 7 Hardware Compatibility indicates this drive is supported and the upgrade advisor did not object to it. Thanks Lionel B. Monday, November 2, PM.

Wednesday, November 4, PM. If it does show here, chances are it doesn't have a drive letter assigned. If this is the case, right click on the drive, select "Change drive Letter If it was not seen there, go to 'Action' on the menu bar, click on 'Rescan Disks' and it should come up.

If necessary assign a drive letter to as described above. Tuesday, November 3, AM. The drive does not show up and rescan does not cause it to do so either. Hi Lionel, Please unplug unnecessary device, try other USB ports and see if the device can be recognized. Regards, Linda. Tuesday, November 3, PM. I just upgarded to windows 7 all good no probs till I came to putting in USB memory stick.

I have tried to rescan disks option and no go have opened all hiden files and folders also to no avail HELP!!!! I need this stick to work PS i do use all the USB ports on the PC with other devices no probs but the USB stick is recognised but does nothing, doesn't show anywhere doesn't even blink at me. Wednesday, November 4, AM. I am having a similar problem that is baffling me with Windows 7. In the Disk Management Console it doesn't show up. Any NEW ideas? Proposed as answer by cwaustintx Tuesday, December 15, PM.

Thursday, December 10, AM. Plug in the external USB hard drive 2. Right mouse click on My Computer 3. Left click on Manage 4. Double click on Storage 5. Double click on Dick Management 6. Left click on Mark Partition as Active 9. Left click on Change Drive Letter and Paths Proposed as answer by nomdeguer Wednesday, July 25, AM.

Tuesday, December 15, PM. Monday, December 21, AM. I have this seagate external drive that windows would not recognize after I took the computer off of sleep-- and you fixed it!!!

Wednesday, December 23, AM. Hi - i tried your solution using Windows7 with an Hitachi external drive but my problem is - the computer sees the new harddrive device , but will not open the drive for viewing OR At step 7 - would not uninstall, just keeps running. This worked with my Maxtor drive which had the problem of not ejecting after i had tried to use the Hitachi.

Any ideas of what the problem could be? Proposed as answer by plshelpnow Saturday, April 19, PM. Monday, January 18, AM. Some of these external drives have a proprietary backup software etc which it requires to be run before the drive can be mounted such as my maxtor one touch..

Monday, January 18, PM. Hi, I also have a Hitachi that was not seen same as most every one here by windows 7 and had no success with any of the methods described. I did however get it to work by using "delete volume" in the disk manager then reactivating the volume. Thursday, February 4, AM. While doing step Number 7 I can not open the drive. There is only the option of "help", I tried using the HD on a different system.

Which did work, I know it is not a USB problem the darn things worked on vista. I can see the drive in device manager but I can not open any files nor will it give anything but the "safely remove hardware". Is there any way to open the drive or is this becoming a lost cause with another windows product?

Tuesday, March 16, PM. I had the same issue and it turns out my windows 7 install somehow didn't include 1 INF file that allows usb mass storage devices to work: usbstor. Thursday, June 24, AM. Make sure the following are on in your blackberry. Go to options on your blackberry Go to Memory and Make sure the following are on Sunday, June 27, AM.

Go to Options Then go to Memory All the following need to be on!!! Thanks Pavlovnl. Wednesday, June 30, PM. Update - I had also contacted Fantom support via email and I'm posting their reply. Monday, July 5, PM. Wednesday, July 21, PM. Did not work for me, it slike i have an HDD HXD5 gb, it works on others windows 7 but does not work in my Windows 7 : In mines it detects, searches for software and then says it did not find any driver for my HD.

Sunday, August 1, AM. Tuesday, August 3, PM. Tuesday, August 10, AM. I have tried all the solutions on this page and no luck. Incidentally, the drive does not show up in disk management to assign a drive letter too, but windows does recognize it.

Windows 7 pro fresh install. Tuesday, August 10, PM. Friday, August 13, PM. I was having the same problems with my acomdata PureDrive. I tried a couple different things. First I followed the procedure above that Lionel provided, but that didn't work for me. Next I went to Disk Management. I couldn't see the drive in the top window pane, but in the bottom pane I could see a drive that was blank it appeared as a Dynamic Drive.

After moving all the files from the external drive to my desktop I right-clicked on the blank drive in the lower pane and chose "Make basic drive", then I right-clicked on it again and chose "Format" and it finally appeared. I am assuming it should be a NTFS drive. Monday, August 16, PM. I'm having the same problem, too. Looking for the solution but haven't found one yet. Does anyone know how to fix this? Wednesday, August 18, AM. I wanted to copy stuff from the old 'puter hard dive so I used an external drive patch cord.

Then I remembered having the same sort of problem on a Red Hat system with a flashdrive. I used a shorter USB cable and there was the drive! Everything worked OK and I was able to copy over my old files. Sounds simplistic but you might give it a try. Sunday, August 29, PM. This helped me so much thank you this got my device working that lets me connect IDE or SATA internal hard drives as an external one and it got my raid working which i was wondering why it was not visible to windows.

Wednesday, October 27, AM. I had a similar issue, you might want to try this out. Wednesday, October 27, PM. Please help!!! Thanks Steve. Saturday, November 6, PM. It should reinstall immediately and show up as a new drive in "My Computer" You may have to uninstall the device first, replug it back in and then run through the above steps.

Tuesday, November 16, PM. When i go to device manager I get the error: Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. Code 43 , My system is Windows 7 pro - fresh install. Do you have any idea? Friday, November 19, AM. Thank you so much! This did the trick. Drive is now working in Windows too.

I really do appreciate the work you are doing G. Friday, November 19, PM. This is what worked for me. I hope that helps the rest of you!

Thursday, December 2, PM. Saturday, December 4, PM. Thank you so much, This worked like a dream and made sooo much sense Sunday, January 2, PM.

Sunday, January 23, AM. Thursday, January 27, AM. Friday, February 4, PM. Friday, February 18, PM. Lionel B. Saturday, March 19, PM.