# Windows Explorer doesn't see flash drive



## MatthewHSE (Jan 9, 2007)

When I open My Computer, I have the following drives listed:

A: Floppy
C: System (hard-drive partition)
D: Programs (hard-drive partition)
E: Data (hard-drive partition)
F: CD Drive
G: CD-RW Drive
H: Mapped network drive
L: Mapped network drive
Z: Pagefile (hard-drive partition)

When I plug in *any* USB flash drive, it will be recognized by the computer (e.g., I can see it in Disk Management) but it won't show up as a drive in My Computer. I have to go into Disk Management and assign the USB drive a drive letter of its own. This wouldn't be too bad if I only had to do it once, but I have to do this every time I plug the thing in.

It's worse because I'm running under a Limited User account now, which doesn't have access to Disk Management. So to use my USB drive, I have to login to my Administrator account.

Does anyone know what's going on here, and is there any fix? Or, is there any way I can set up my computer to *always* recognize *any* USB drive as a particular drive letter?

Thanks in advance,

Matthew


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

It may be a limitation of running on the user account. If you are running as admin, and plug in the drive, does it show up then?


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## MatthewHSE (Jan 9, 2007)

No, I get the same behavior under both accounts. The only difference is that, as admin, I can use the Disk Management tool to assign a drive letter, which I can't do under the user account.


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## MatthewHSE (Jan 9, 2007)

Does anyone have any ideas on this?

I should add that the mapped network drives appear to be related to the problem. If I disconnect them and give all the hard drive partitions and CD drives sequential drive letters, then the USB drives will be recognized automatically as the next available drive letter.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Can you put the mapped drives above any local drives? I think if you have a network drive next to the local drives, the USB drive may not assign a drive letter. For instance, try this:

C:, D:, E: - local hard disks
F:, G:, H:, I: - reserved letters for removable drives
J:, K:, ... - mapped network drives

Obviously, you adjust the actual drive letters to your specific situation. The concept is to leave space behind the local hard drives and before the mapped drives for the removable drives.


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## Cyps (Jan 3, 2006)

A Network Admin once told me to avoid assigning the F: drive letter to anything other than fixed hard drives, otherwise conflicts could occur, but he never explained why.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I've never heard of that, and I sure don't know that to be true.  I have a system here with F: assigned to the DVD drive, works just fine...


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## MatthewHSE (Jan 9, 2007)

> C:, D:, E: - local hard disks
> F:, G:, H:, I: - reserved letters for removable drives
> J:, K:, ... - mapped network drives


Thanks, I tried that and it worked great! Too bad about all my shortcuts using the network drive letters though....


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