The advent of affordable flash-based storage devices marked the beginning of a new round of progress in computing. At online auctions you can still see the “echoes of the past” - mobile phones with a built-in hard drive.
Insufficient reliability due to the presence of rotating parts and heating, limited availability, high mass of the device are just some of the features of mobile devices of this class with an internal hard drive. But with the advent of flash drives on the market, the situation has radically changed, since it has become possible to easily and simply overcome all of the above problems. However, due to the fact that the technology is still relatively new, many users have various questions, for example, about why the computer
does not see the flash drive.Various forums and sites provide their recommendations for recovery. They help one, others do not. It all depends on the reason why the computer does not read the flash drive. However, this is obvious. That is why without a detailed study of the issue, it is impossible to unequivocally say what to do if the computer does not see the flash drive. In this article, we present some of the most common causes.
The instructions for flash drives do not in vain indicate the need to correctly disconnect the device from a working computer through a system function. Surely, each user noticed that after connecting a USB flash drive in the system tray (the lower right corner of the desktop, next to the clock), a special icon appears, when you hover over the cursor pointer, the prompt “Safely Remove Hardware” appears.
If the USB flash drive is finished and you need to remove it from the USB port, you need to right-click the properties of this icon, select the device in the window that appears and click "Stop". And do not take out "on the go" and at the next connection to guess why the computer does not see the flash drive! Unexpected (for the computer) extraction may coincide with a transaction during which it is impossible to remove the device. On flash drives there is an LED that blinks while exchanging data on the bus. If you really want to disconnect the device without “Removing”, then you need to do this at the moment when the LED is off. So, the first reason is incorrect extraction. Solution: follow the recommendations for the correct shutdown.
The second common problem, which raises the question of why the computer does not see the flash drive, and good media are ejected, is the use of a USB extension cord. According to the USB 2.0 specification, the maximum current per port is 500 milliamps. Many devices, including some flash drives, require exactly the same 500 mA for their work. Given the low voltage (5 Volts) of the bus, when the intermediate
conductor is connected, the line
resistance increases, the current drops, the device does not work. And the user thinks about why the computer does not see the flash drive. Solution: connect without extension cord, at least for verification.
And finally, before discarding a USB flash drive, it’s worth trying to redefine system devices. We follow the path "My computer - Properties - Equipment - Device Manager". Here, in the list, open “USB Bus Controllers” and delete the lines that relate to the USB flash drive - “Storage” and “Composite device”. After that, here we click on the screen image (a hint - “Update configuration”).