How to open a flash drive on a Windows 8 laptop. A guide for when the computer does not see the flash drive

If you Windows user, you may encounter a problem with the USB device on your PC. You may see this error when connecting Pendrive, webcam, printer or flash drives. This can happen for many reasons. Thanks to this article, you will learn how to fix: “ The laptop does not recognize USB devices".

This problem exists in all modern versions such as Windows 10, 8.1, 8 and 7. There are actually different reasons for this error.

Why doesn't the USB port recognize devices?

All PC errors and problems have some causes. Here's what causes this problem −

• Unstable or damaged USB controllers.
• Outdated motherboard drive.
• Lack of important Windows updates or any other services.
• Damaged USB drives.
• Incorrect power management settings.

Fix “does not recognize usb device” in Windows:

Every problem has a solution. Fortunately, there are many ways to fix problems. USB device on Windows. Let's try the most effective methods.

Method 1: Restart your computer.

One of the simplest and quick ways eliminating " can't recognize usb device" is to reboot the PC. Before starting your computer, unplug it for 1 minute. This will reset the USB hub on your motherboard. If the problem occurs on the laptop, you should remove the laptop battery for 3-4 minutes and reinsert it. Now start your computer and see if the problem is still there.

Method 2: Find an undetected driver.

Scanning for not detected drivers is another great choice for diagnosing and repairing the error " does not recognize usb windows device 7,8,10 " by using device manager. He has access to all internal and external devices, which electrify your system.

• Go to your control panel.
• Select Hardware and Sound.
• Click Device Manager.
• Open the action menu.
• Now click on “Scan for hardware changes”.
• Windows scans your hardware.
• Close the Manager and all Control Panel windows.
• Now check if your computer finds the driver by re-opening device Manager.

Method 4: Update drivers.

Sometimes updating your device drivers will fix the problem in Windows. You can do this in different ways.

1. Check the USB driver manufacturer's website. Find updated drivers. Download and install them.

Method 5: Managing USB Hub Power

Sometimes, to correct a mistake " Windows does not recognize the USB device“, you need to do the following.

• Open Device Manager again.
• Click "USB Controllers".
• Now right click on the USB Root Hub.
• Select Properties.
• Go to the Power Management tab.
• Now, uncheck the Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.
• Now click "OK".

Method 6: Removing an unknown USB drive

If other methods do not work, you should remove unknown devices to resolve the error " computer does not recognize usb devices»

• First, open Run by pressing Windows logo + R.
• Enter devmgmt.msc and click "OK".
• Now click on “USB controllers”.
• Connect a device that is not recognized by the PC port.
• Find the icon called Unknown device USB(port failure).
• Right-click on it and select Delete.
• Restart your computer.

Method 7: Reinstall USB Drivers

Sometimes windows 10 does not recognize usb device, due to corrupted USB drivers, then you should try this.

Operating systems of the Windows family produced by Microsoft often do not see USB devices, and there can be a lot of reasons for this.
How this manifests itself and whether there is a way out of the situation is the topic of our article. We will dwell on the reasons in more detail and try to consider each case separately. If your laptop or personal computer does not see the USB flash drive, this manifests itself as follows:

• You connected a USB flash drive, but the computer displays the message “insert USB device.”
• The flash drive is connected, as evidenced by the icon and sound, but file manager she's not there.
• A warning appears about formatting the USB device.
• A data error warning appears.

Before trying various ways to fix the problem of the invisibility of a flash drive, make sure that the drive is not physically damaged, and also use one of the special applications that diagnoses and corrects errors in USB devices. For example, special utilities developed by Kingston and Sandisk corporations.

Check if the computer sees the connected flash drive in Disk Management

To launch a special utility that manages USB devices, do the following:

Open the Disk Management tab and turn the flash drive on and off several times. If a connected USB device appears, the computer will notify you that each of its sections (there is only one in the flash drive) is working. In this situation, the easiest way to fix the error is that the PC does not see the flash drive. Right-click on a section to make that section active. You can also assign the letter E or D to the flash drive. After this, you will see that the computer has recognized the USB device.

And if, after reconnecting the device, the partition status is displayed in “Disk Management” as “Not allocated,” then it either does not exist, or it is working with errors. Right click and create a partition. But this can only be used if the menu has the “Create a simple volume” item. If you create a partition, the flash drive will be formatted, although all data stored on it will be lost.

If in the utility you find the label “uninitialized” USB device, it means it is damaged. You can try to restore the drive's memory. We will tell you how to do this later. If you have previously created partitions on a USB device that are not supported by the Microsoft operating system, then you need to delete them. Step-by-step instructions will tell you how to do this.

Further simple steps

Using the OS device manager, you can view all installed USB devices and check that they are working correctly. See how your USB flash drive is displayed in the manager. The flash drive connected to the computer may be unknown, identified by its own name, or labeled as a USB storage device.

This flash drive must be removed. Then "update USB storage configuration".

Very often, after these steps, the updated USB device is displayed in the OS file manager.

There are also other situations that lead to an error in which the computer does not see the flash drive. Perhaps you are connecting a USB device using an extension cord or USB hub? Then try directly connecting the device to each of the USB ports in turn. Perhaps one of the ports is inoperative and you don't know about it.

Try another option. Turn off the computer and remove everything that was connected to it (printers, cameras, external media, card readers and other devices connected with via USB), leaving only the necessary minimum and storage. After this, turn on your computer. If the PC saw the connected storage device, you have found the problem. The problem is that there is little power supplied to the computer's USB ports. In this case, replacing the power supply or purchasing a USB hub will help you.

Windows 10 does not see the flash drive after updating or installation (suitable for Windows 7, 8)

If you have updated your operating system, there is a high probability that you will encounter such a problem. In this case, the problem lies either in the lack of a recent version of USB drivers, or in the fact that the registry entries for USB devices are outdated.

If this is the second option, you can use the USBOblivion program. You can download it for free to the author and remove all outdated entries. Be careful! Before deleting, it is better to create a restore point, so that if USBOblivion does not work correctly, you can undo the erroneous actions and return to the previous settings.

Before starting the utility, disconnect all flash drives connected to the USB ports. Only after this, run it and clean the registry, first saving old entries to a file.

After cleaning the registry, reboot and reconnect the drive. If the computer again does not see it, follow step by step all the steps we wrote about above: remove it, update the configuration and connect again.

If you have an operating system version 10, then an error may occur due to driver incompatibility. If this is the case, there will be a mark next to the driver - an exclamation point. In this case, download updated versions from the official developer pages. Do not use third-party sites to search for drivers, especially if you need to update them for your mobile computer. In some cases, it is recommended to update the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) as well.

If the flash drive is not seen by Windows XP

Owners of Windows XP, especially SP2 builds, often encounter a problem in which the computer does not see the flash drive. This problem is due to the lack of updates in the operating system that would allow working with USB devices.

If you have this operating system and are experiencing a problem, follow these steps:

1. Update the build to SP3 and remove the IE browser.
2. Update your operating system, even if you have a new build.
3. If the problem occurs on Win Vista, also update the software first.

The new build of Windows XP came with updates that allowed USB drives to work correctly. The following errors in new version Windows XP has been patched by Microsoft:

• KB967132 - in the previous version it was impossible to connect multiple flash drives or other devices. When interacting with each other, they caused crashes, freezes and critical system reboots.
• KB898962 - when the printer is turned off, the flash drive also stops working correctly.
• KB315634 - it is impossible to connect new USB flash drives, although old ones that were previously used work without problems.
• KB924196 - this error indicated that the personal/mobile computer did not see the connected flash drive or portable media player.
• KB88840 - when connecting/disconnecting a USB device, a computer or laptop displays a warning about a common Rundll32.exe error.
• KB362370 - the new build of Windows XP now supports the second version of the USB port.
• KB881233 - after the computer wakes from sleep mode, the flash drive does not appear in Device Manager. A problem similar to the previous case occurs after the computer comes out of hibernation.
• KB857900 - after turning flash devices on/off again, the port did not work correctly.

Completely remove old USB drivers

You connect a flash drive, but the computer does not see it and displays a warning about its absence. The problem may be that your old drivers do not work correctly and, therefore, the USB device cannot be assigned a letter. Old drivers can also cause problems with rebooting, freezing, or incorrect operation of the computer when a flash device is connected.

Drivers operating system Microsoft is installed by default, immediately after the first connection external storage. Then this one installed driver it remains in the OS. But when connecting another device, the driver may not work, causing crashes and other problems. In a word, to solve all kinds of problems associated with incorrect work drivers, they must be removed and new ones installed again.

How to remove drivers for all USB devices

Step one After turning off the computer, remove everything: printers, cameras, external media, card readers and other devices connected via USB.

Step two Boot the operating system.

Step three Download from official page author free program DriveCleanup, compatible with all versions of Windows.

Step four The drivecleanup.exe file must be copied to

C:\Windows\System32\
Step Five In the command line, write drivecleanup.exe.

Step six The program will clear all drivers and entries.

After the computer restarts, insert the flash drive and wait while the utility installs the updated drivers.

Reinstalling USB devices in Windows Device Manager

If you have used all the methods discussed and none of them helped, follow these four steps:

1. In Device Manager, enter devmgmt.msc.
2. From Device Manager, open the USB Controllers tab.
3. Delete everything where the names include USB hub, Hub, Host Controller.
4. Update the USB device configuration from the manager.

After completing all four steps, reconnect the flash drive. Perhaps the problem will be solved, and your personal or mobile computer can already see all external devices.

Additional actions

It would also be a good idea to perform the following four steps in sequence:

1. A possible reason that a computer or laptop does not see flash media is the presence of viruses. Download if you do not have it installed, and check all disks.
2. A possible cause could also be an incorrect registry entry. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Policies\ Explorer. NoDrives must be removed, and then restart your PC or laptop.
3. In registry entries HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ System\ CurrentControlSet\ Control you also need to remove StorageDevicePolicies.
4. If all else fails, completely unplug your computer. Unplug the cord from the outlet, having first disconnected the PC or the battery from the laptop, and hold the power button for a while. After this, you can turn on the computer and try the flash drive.

Recovering data from a flash drive that the computer cannot see

If the computer sees your flash drive, but it is listed as “uninitialized” with an “unallocated” partition, then the device’s memory is damaged. Do not despair prematurely: in some cases, all information stored on a removable storage device can be restored.

When using flash drives, remember two simple things that, in case of unforeseen situations, will help you restore everything that was stored on them:

First, if you want to restore a flash drive, do not copy additional information to it.

Second, if you are restoring the device’s memory, save the information from it to another flash drive.

We recommend that you use the best utility- . The program is free, effective, has a clear Russian-language interface and two versions - installation and portable - therefore it is very popular among different categories users. Using this software, you can recover absolutely all information from all media, not just flash devices.

The utility works both manually and automatic mode, and even beginners who have never dealt with such software. Recuva itself will offer best way to recover all information from a damaged flash drive, you just have to agree by clicking the confirm button.

If after all the manipulations you still cannot connect the USB device to your computer or laptop, the recovery program cannot be used, and the information stored in its memory is very important, we recommend professional help specialists dealing with these problems. They will restore both files and all content stored on the damaged device.

Why doesn't the computer see the flash drive? My friends ask me at the end of the working day and put the system unit in front of me, in response to my remark that the computer is not new, I hear the answer: they bought it recently, everything worked for the previous owner, but for some reason they didn’t and they put a camera in front of me that needs to be connected , a flash drive, and in addition they show the printer in the corner, I was very tired, but I need to solve the issue, USB specifications, compatibility, the USB controller in the BIOS were spinning in my head, with which I decided to start.

Why doesn't the computer see the flash drive?

If you connect a device to the USB connector of the system unit, it should automatically be detected and available in the My Computer window, but this does not happen and the device is not detected.

Let's start with the BIOS, and how to get into it? In most cases, you need to frequently press the F2 or Delete keys in the very initial phase of booting the computer, or read the instructions for your motherboard, or you can read our article
We went into the BIOS, we have it from Award, then go to the tab Advanced and move to the point Integrated Peripherals, press Enter

and we see that ours USB Controller included

but he specs USB 1.1, so what, our devices should work with it.
Here I had the idea to reinstall the operating system, but first I decided to look inside the system unit and saw a USB 1.1 hub connected to a 9-pin connector on the motherboard, this hub outputs to back panel The system unit has four USB standard connectors, on the motherboard itself there are only two USB 1.1 ports and you may not even notice them.

• Note: The point is that hubs USB 1.1 cannot be used to connect devices USB 2.0. Of course, the old owner knew about this and tried to connect all devices directly to USB ports on the motherboard, but my friends don't.

Let's connect our devices directly to USB ports on the motherboard.
After turning on the computer, we saw a message from the operating system indicating that a faster USB 2.0 specification device is connected to the port.
Flash drive I saw it quickly, but for the Hewlett-Packard camera I had to download a driver package from the official website and only after installing them did it start working. By the way, I tried connecting the camera to system unit With motherboard supporting the USB 2.0 interface, also to no avail. The hardware installation wizard also did not solve the issue.
As for the Samsung printer, all labels with numbers and names were erased, the drivers had to be searched by the device code, we have a good article about this. Once the drivers were found, our printer worked perfectly.

Let me give you another example why computer Maybe can't see the flash drive, may be useful to you.
I have a laptop at work and a Canon CanoScan LiDE scanner is connected to it, which is powered directly from the USB port. The manufacturer claims energy efficiency, this is good, but as soon as I connect two more devices to my laptop, for example, a USB interface keyboard, and then a flash drive, the laptop stops seeing the scanner or does not see the flash drive at point-blank range, why?
This means that there is a power shortage for these devices, sometimes the overall level of energy consumption connected to USB connectors, is approaching the limit of its capabilities.

You can find out the power of the USB controller on your computer in Device Manager Properties- tab Nutrition, it is equal 500 mA for USB 2.0 and 900 mA for version 3.0, and printers and scanners require much more power to power.

To avoid overloading this interface, Windows may disable some devices

Here's another answer to the question Why doesn't the computer see the flash drive?

Let's prevent Windows from managing the power supply of the USB controller, go to the device manager and expand the branch Universal Serial Bus Controllers, further USB root hub, double-click on it with the left mouse button and select Power management. You need to uncheck Allow this device to turn off to save power and press OK, this needs to be done for everyone USB root hub.

Read, what to do if Windows does not display the connected device. How to restore functionality to such a device if this is the reason. A flash drive or any other USB drive should be automatically detected by the computer and displayed in Explorer and the “This PC” folder after connecting to the USB port.

Content:

Diagnosis of the problem

The first thing you need to do if connected USB disk does not appear in the Windows file manager, you need to check the tool Disk Management.

To open Disk Management in Windows 8/10, right-click on the menu Start and select "Disk Management". In Windows 7, press the combination Windows keys+ R to open dialog box "Run" and enter the command in it diskmgmt.msc.

Check the list of drives in the window Disk Management and find the USB drive that is not detected. It should appear here even if it is not in the folder "This computer", and match in size. Sometimes it is defined as "Removable device", but not always.

If you do not see your disk or flash drive even in Disk Management, then try the following:

• Turn on the disk, if there is such a function. Some external hard drives have a separate power cable or are turned on using a separate key designed for this.
• Connect the device to another USB port. Disconnect the flash drive from this USB port and connect to another. Perhaps one of the USB ports on your computer has failed.
• Connect the device to your computer without a USB hub. If the flash drive is connected to the computer via an extension cord or USB hub, try disconnecting it from it and connecting it directly to the computer. Perhaps the reason is in the hub.
• Try another computer. Connect the flash drive to the USB port of another computer and see if it is recognized by it. If the device is also not detected by another computer, then most likely the problem lies with it.

Solving the problem

If the problem options described above do not apply to your case, then your problem can most likely be solved using one of the methods described below. Depending on what you find in Disk Management, there are options for solving the problem that has arisen with identifying an external storage medium.

If Windows sees the disk, but cannot read it, then this means that it contains file system which it doesn't support. In this case, the operating system will prompt you to format the disk before using it. But don't rush to do it! This will destroy all your data.

If other computers see the flash drive, but yours doesn’t

If other computers detect your USB drive, but yours does not, then most likely there is a problem with the device drivers.

To check this, open Device Manager and look for Disk devices And USB controllers. Look to see if these sections contain devices marked with a yellow exclamation mark. If there is such a device, right-click on it and select Properties. The properties will contain information about the error and driver status.

To fix the driver problem, right-click on the device, select Properties / Driver / Update.

If the disk is visible in Disk Management

If the disc is visible in Disk Management, but it does not have a letter, then it is for this reason that it may not appear in Windows Explorer. In order for the system to start displaying it in Explorer, such a drive must be assigned a letter.

To do this, right-click on it and select "Change drive letter or drive path". If there is no such item in the pop-up menu, this may be due to the absence or unsupported file system type of the storage medium.

In the menu that opens, you will see that the drive does not have a letter assigned - assign it. To do this, select Add / / Ok.

If the disk is visible in Disk Management, but it is not allocated

If the disc is visible in Disk Management, but it is not distributed, which means that it is not formatted. In order for such a disk to become operational, right-click on it and select "Create Simple Volume".

Select the maximum suggested partition size and assign a drive letter suggested by the system. After this, the disk will be normally detected by the system and ready for use.

If the disk is visible in Disk Management but cannot be formatted

If for some reason the disk cannot be formatted, then to restore its functionality, you can completely erase it and then re-create the partition.

Note. As a result of such manipulation, all data from the disk (as well as flash drives or memory cards) will be permanently deleted. Therefore, worry about their safety in advance - scan the disk or flash drive using Hetman Partition Recovery, and save your data in a convenient place.

To clean the disk, open Command line as administrator and clean it up using the command diskpart – "clean".