help mw fix my usb, in and out of device manager

Threepwood

Threepwood

Threepwood

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when I was trying to get my tobi eye tracjker to work, I had to turn off, and minimise usb controllers in devive manager to see if the tobi was recognised, now, although all my main usb hardware works, mouse, keyboard, and headphones,
if I put a usb stick into a usb socket, it can be seen in device manager, but not as a drive in ' this PC', is there any way to roll back to default settings?
I don't want to have to reinstall windows to get them working again
 
Tested more than 1 flash drive?
Tested in different usb ports?
If only 1 flash drive as orcvader said
Verify it works on another PC,tv,phone,tablet etc
Anything basically that can read flash drives

If i disable usb ports or usb hubs in device manager
It's just a case of go back and enable them
Or if I uninstall them
Just a case of right click Anything in device manager
And scan for hardware changes
 
Mcnumpty2323 said:
Tested more than 1 flash drive?
Tested in different usb ports?
If only 1 flash drive as orcvader said
Verify it works on another PC,tv,phone,tablet etc
Anything basically that can read flash drives

If i disable usb ports or usb hubs in device manager
It's just a case of go back and enable them
Or if I uninstall them
Just a case of right click Anything in device manager
And scan for hardware changes
Click to expand...
yes. ( being a man of sound, reasonable mind, I have tried the obvious, a working usb stick does not show up on my desktop, but it shows up on my laptop, as a useable drive that is. it is definitely my usb hardware settings in device manager that is screwed! because I screwed with them.
 
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Again, have you check in disk management to see if that can see the USB drive as well? If it can, reinitialising the drive and assigning a drive letter could fix it.
 
As orcvader said check it's being assigned
A drive letter first
That certainly would cause the same as you're getting

If that's not the issue
Then yeah I probably would uninstall all the
Usb hubs in device manager
Then scan for hardware changes
At some point that might cause mouse and keyboard
To stop functioning so may have to just press reset button
to restart the pc

Too late now obviously but if you disable something
In device manager should always take note
Of what it was
Assuming it wasn't a hidden device as wouldn't have seen it
To disable without clicking show hidden devices first

And image backups are what get you out
Of these situations
Far faster to just load a backup than try to figure out
What's gone wrong
 
Orcvader said:
Again, have you check in disk management to see if that can see the USB drive as well? If it can, reinitialising the drive and assigning a drive letter could fix it.
Click to expand...
tried that, but nothing, besides. if that were a problem, why would my laptop see it as a drive?
 
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Threepwood said:
tried that, but nothing, besides. if that were a problem, why would my laptop see it as a drive?
Click to expand...
Your laptop would see it
Because it's windows that allocates drive letters
Not the drive itself
Even a second drive on the same pc
With windows installed might see it fine
 
Threepwood said:
tried that, but nothing, besides. if that were a problem, why would my laptop see it as a drive?
Click to expand...
As Mcnumpty has mentioned, the laptop would be properly assigning drive letters to the USB drive. This doesn't carry over though so the PC with the fault would still need to assign a drive letter to the USB as well for its own use. It was just in case the PC can still see the drive but wasn't assigning drive letters, which means they won't appear in Explorer.

What's the full system specs? When you were turning things off in device manager, were you using the disable or uninstall option, or something else completely?
 
Orcvader said:
Again, have you check in disk management to see if that can see the USB drive as well? If it can, reinitialising the drive and assigning a drive letter could fix it.
Click to expand...
all my usbs are detected in device manager, but not in disk manager:confused:
 
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Threepwood said:
both are windows
Click to expand...
Yes i realise that
But each separately will assign a drive letter
(Or not if there's a problem )

I have 2 drives with windows installed in one pc
Just because windows number 1 assigns say drive letter L
To a flash drive
That letter isn't stored on the flash drive
So if I boot to windows number 2 it may decide to assign
Drive letter J to it instead
A drive you boot with windows installed will always be C
But not with flash drives or other drives
They don't carry their own drive letter with them
 
Yes all your usb sticks
As already explained the drives don't
Allocate drive letters themselves
Windows does
So a windows/windows driver issue will
Affect all of them
No drive letter means not visible in file Explorer

They will all work fine on your laptop
Because the windows on there is working correctly

Whatever you disabled/Uninstalled
Must have something to do with seeing removable drives
So mouse ,keyboard etc may work in the same usb port possibly
Because they aren't seen as removable drives
But are seen as hid (human interface devices)
 
Mcnumpty2323 said:
Yes all your usb sticks
As already explained the drives don't
Allocate drive letters themselves
Windows does
Click to expand...
mine used to show up as the name the drive was given upon format, not a drive letter!
for example, my usb that I use for bios flashing is called "boot, and it always came up as" boot" in this PC, not E:
If I put it into my laptop it comes up as "boot" I don't have to prat about assigning it a drive letter or anything, I never have, just name the formatted drive, and that is always what it came up as in windows, like it has always been, just the same if I format a diskette on my amiga, that disk will always be known as the name that it was given
I can't be the only person who uses usbs like this! it's normal, without drive letter assigning! usbs are plug and play
 
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Threepwood said:
mine used to show up as the name the drive was given upon format, not a drive letter!
for example, my usb that I use for bios flashing is called "boot, and it always came up as" boot" in this PC, not E:
If I put it into my laptop it comes up as "boot" I don't have to prat about assigning it a drive letter or anything, I never have, just name the formatted drive, and that is always what it came up as in windows, like it has always been, just the same if I format a diskette on my amiga, that disk will always be known as the name that it was given
I can't be the only person who uses usbs like this! it's normal, without drive letter assigning! usbs are plug and play
Click to expand...
All 7 of my flash drives are named
Otherwise I forget what's on which drive
Because my memory isn't great
Likewise all 9 of my internal drives are also named
Even on my boot menu the individual drives are named so it doesn't just say
Windows 10,Windows 11,Windows 11
They are named so I know what Windows 11
Has what on it etc
Overkill I know but that's how I do it
All of them internal or external or flash drives
They still get assigned a drive letter
Even though they are also named
But its still not a constant drive letter
Plugging into another device it can get given
Any drive letter

The only way I know how to not have them
Be assigned a drive letter
Is to actually go in Windows settings
And tell it not to do it
Though don't even remember how to do that
Anymore as I haven't done it in years

The issue is Windows/drivers/disabled devices
In device manager
Since that's the last thing you did
Before the problem occurred?
Not the flash drives


Edit
The only other way they may not get a drive letter i can think of
Is If when you format them
You name them
And actually tell Windows do not assign
A drive letter ?
Perhaps that's what you're doing
When you format them?
If so
Then try putting one in the laptop
And assign a drive letter to it
Then put it in the pc
And see if it makes a difference
Not sure it will
Since probably still need to fix whatever
You disabled/uninstalled in device manager
But its worth a shot i guess
 
Threepwood said:
mine used to show up as the name the drive was given upon format, not a drive letter!
for example, my usb that I use for bios flashing is called "boot, and it always came up as" boot" in this PC, not E:
If I put it into my laptop it comes up as "boot" I don't have to prat about assigning it a drive letter or anything, I never have, just name the formatted drive, and that is always what it came up as in windows, like it has always been, just the same if I format a diskette on my amiga, that disk will always be known as the name that it was given
I can't be the only person who uses usbs like this! it's normal, without drive letter assigning! usbs are plug and play
Click to expand...
That's the drive name which does get carried over. Driver letter will still be assigned, you can usually see it next to the name in explorer.

It's just for some reason your PC is not properly detecting USBs as storage. Did you try the chipset driver I linked?
 
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