USB Thumb Drive not recognized - won't mount or read in any way...

[J187]

I have a Thumb drive problem different than most I've encountered. I know reassign drive letters, and various other fixes... this drive however, will not even show up under disk management. It lights up and then windows reports "the USB device is not recognized". It just stopped working all of a sudden. Anyone have any info on a fix for this?

 

[deanj20]

Yeah - you may need to install a driver for it. What is the make/model?

Also, have you used other USB drives in that computer without problems? Or used the USB drive on other computers without problems?

Answer those three questions and we'll see what we can figure out...

 

[J187]

Yeah - you may need to install a driver for it. What is the make/model?

Also, have you used other USB drives in that computer without problems? Or used the USB drive on other computers without problems?

Answer those three questions and we'll see what we can figure out...

It worked fine for months. Then, stopped. There is some pretty important data on there. It doesn't work in any computer, yet my other thumb drives work fine in all.

 

[deanj20]

It doesn't work in any computer, yet my other thumb drives work fine in all.

It lights up, so we know it's still connecting - to get power anyway... What's strange that it recognizes other USB drives no problem. Look at the USB male plug on the drive - is it "squared up" with the rest of the drive? Could it have become loose or misaligned after being plugged/unplugged so many times? If so, you might try jerking it around and see if it doesn't pop back into place... I've also read about people "squeezing" their drives when they plug them in or even using rubber bands to apply pressure to the sides of the drives to "revive" them... it's worth a try...

I'm running out of ideas on this one. Please list the make/model of the drive and the PC models/OSes you've tried the drive on. As well as other drives that have worked...