# Flash Drive/Thumb Drive how to enable



## Aneeliyo (Jun 22, 2007)

Greetings to all  

By mistake i disabled my flasd drive... here is what i did...

at the task bar (the one at the bottom ---start -----) i right clicked the safely remove hardware and selected properties and device usage i disbaled.. since than i cant use this flash drive in this computer.. i can use other flash drive/thumb drive usb drive but the one which i disabled i cant use it and it wont recognise too.

Please help me to fix this problem. when i insert other flash drive/thumb drive my computer detects it but the one which i disabled wont detect. What should i do?  

Highly apreciate your help

AneeLiyo
Bangkok


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## tech13 (Jun 26, 2007)

What OS are you using? because on win XP there is no "disable" on the safely remove hardware wizard. one of two things might be happening, either A.) your flash drive is dead or B.) that port got corrupted for that drive so try one of two things

1.) try the flash drive on another USB port or another computer to confirm it is not dead
2.) if it works on another USB port or another computer its more than likely corruption of the USB drives so I would recommend going into device manager and removing ALL "Universal serial bus controller" items and then reboot computer and it will automatically reinstall all USB drivers for you (this is for windows XP if you have it). if its another OS let me know


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## Aneeliyo (Jun 22, 2007)

tech13 thanks a lot for the advice but i tried what you said but still my computer does not detect the thumb drive and as u said the same thumb drive i can use in the other computers and it works fine and at the same time other thumb driver when i plug in to my computer (the one which does not detect my thumb drive) it detects the other thumb drive. I am using XP professsional edition.

Please help

AneeLiyo
Bangkok


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## tech13 (Jun 26, 2007)

hmm well if your using XP PRO, im wondering how it was "disabled" as the safely remove hardware wizard does not give that option to disable the device, only to stop the device so that you can safely remove it. if it works in other computers the drive sounds like its operational, but i have come into contact with issues like this and removing all of the USB drivers in device manager then rebooting SHOULD resolve the issue. I need to know how it was disabled?


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## tech13 (Jun 26, 2007)

ok, after re-reading your first post (sorry im blind and tired) i know what the issue is. every device that is USB has drivers associated with it, and some usb flash sticks have their own drivers in them so when you plug it in, it works. now, what you did was disable the use of this driver, so we simply have to find out where that driver is in your device manager and re-enable it by going to properties.


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## Aneeliyo (Jun 22, 2007)

yeah thats what i did. how do i find the driver?


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## tech13 (Jun 26, 2007)

if you right click my computer, go to properties, then select the hardware tab, and click the "device manager" button it brings up all the drivers on your system. it is most likely under "disk drives" near the top as most USB sticks would be listed there, simply right click each one, go to properties and make sure it is ENABLED


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## Aneeliyo (Jun 22, 2007)

tech13, i did that but in disk drive i have only 1 listed that is my hard disk thats all cannot find anything else


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## tech13 (Jun 26, 2007)

is the flash stick plugged in right now? the drive has to be plugged in while you are doing this so it is recognized in device manager


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## Aneeliyo (Jun 22, 2007)

yes it is


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## Aneeliyo (Jun 22, 2007)

its actually ipod from apple


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## tech13 (Jun 26, 2007)

ok its an iPod, give me a few minutes im gonna check for you


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## tech13 (Jun 26, 2007)

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305136

try that link

"Note: A red "X" appearing next to the iPod's entry in Device Manager indicates this device is disabled. To enable this device, right-click its entry in Device Manager and choose Enable from the shortcut menu."


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## Aneeliyo (Jun 22, 2007)

there is no red "X" appearing and i tried all those under USB storage device all are enabled


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## tech13 (Jun 26, 2007)

1.) can you locate your ipod in the device manager at all?
2.) under universal serial bus devices, did you right click each one, uninstall, then reboot your computer? (hint: uninstall them from the bottom up)
3.) do you get ANY messages when you plug in the device? 
4.) did you try reinstalling the driver for the device?
5.) after trying all of the above steps, you can right click on universal serial bus devices and scan for hardware changes.

have your device plugged in during steps 1, 3, 5


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## Aneeliyo (Jun 22, 2007)

no i cant locate the device at all


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## tech13 (Jun 26, 2007)

can you please follow those 4 steps i gave you in my last post and tell me if they did or did not provide you with any new results or information?

"Locate the iPod in this list. In some cases one of the entries will have "iPod" in its name. If no such entries are present, the iPod is most likely represented by "USB Mass Storage Device." "


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## tech13 (Jun 26, 2007)

heres the thing, since the driver was disabled, if you plug the drive in, it has to be in device manager somewhere, it didnt just disappear. you can try REINSTALLING the driver, that should re-enable it. you can also check the "safely remove hardware wizard" to see if the device is in there, just not enabled.

IF ALL ELSE FAILS from my instruction do the following:
system restore. 
system restore should work if this change was done recently, go to start>all programs>system tools>system restore. choose restore my computer to an earlier date and choose a date BEFORE the issue happened. it should reverse this setting for you.


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## Aneeliyo (Jun 22, 2007)

tech13 many thnaks for your time and advice but still it wont work and i cant do sys restore as this happened couple of weeks ago.

Anyway thanks a lot for the help

AneeLiyO
Bangkok


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## tech13 (Jun 26, 2007)

reinstall your operating system. backup all your important data to external hard drive or burn it to cd/dvd's and reinstall windows. this will definetly resolve the issue but its a lot of work.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Plug the USB drive in.

Start, Run, diskmgmt.msc

Look for the USB drive in the display, see if you can enable and/or format it there.

If that doesn't work, Start, Run, devmgmt.msc

Locate the drive under Disks and right click on it, select Enable.


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## Aneeliyo (Jun 22, 2007)

johnwill thanks buddy for the help but tech13 had already metioned about it. The computer does not detect the thum drive/flash drive so how can i see that in the disk mangement or device management?


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Are you saying you've looked in Disk Management and Device Manager and the drive doesn't appear at all?

If that's the case, and the USB ports are working, the drive is probably dead.


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## Aneeliyo (Jun 22, 2007)

johnwill, nah... the thumbdrive is not dead as i can use the same thumb drive in other computers without any problems and the computer which does not detect my thum drive detects other thumb drives/flash drives. Any other ideas?


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

*First step, Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore. Create a restore point and name it something like "Before USB Fix". This is to bail you out if something goes wrong during the following process and makes things worse.*

Create a file with NOTEPAD containing the following lines and save it as FIX.REG

-------------------------- Use text after this line --------------------------------
REGEDIT4
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment]"DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES"="1"

-------------------------- Use text before this line --------------------------------

Double click on FIX.REG and say yes to the Merge Into Registry question.

Unplug ALL USB devices.
Open Device Manager.
View, Show Hidden Devices.
Uninstall all devices under USB Controllers.
Uninstall all devices under Disk Drives that you know are not present.
Uninstall all devices under Storage Volumes. Say no to any reboot prompts until you are finished. Also, if a Storage Volume doesn't uninstall, ignore it and move to the next one.
If you have a yellow ? with unknown devices, uninstall all of the entries there as well.

When this is done, reboot TWICE.

Reconnect the USB devices and see if they're recognized properly.

NOTE: If you have a USB keyboard and/or mouse, you'll have to modify the instructions and leave enough parts for those to function. I don't have one yet, so I haven't had time to modify the instructions.


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