W2K wont recognise Memory Stick

[niallo32]

I have Windows 2000 Pro pc thats fully patched. It has two USB Ports. When I plug in a memory stick that works on all other pcs, it does not recognise it (it doesnt appear in 'My Computer'.

Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[HelloMike]

Is this a laptop or a desktop? One of my machines is a laptop with 2 USB ports. One port is powered and the other isn't. The laptop doesn't recognise a memory stick if I shove it into the unpowered port.

Cheers, Mike.

 

[niallo32]

It's a desktop - when I plug in the stick in either USB Slot, a green light goes on on the stick for a few seconds, then it goes off.

Thanks

 

[HelloMike]

Ah well, it was just a thought. I guess you'll have to wait for a real expert to answer.

Cheers, Mike.

 

[electronicsfreak]

Dont know much about memory sticks but what are the age differences between these computers? Reason im asking older computer usb ports do not have the same ammount of power as the new ones. Weither or not this affects it I dont know but I thought I would throw in my 2 cents and give it a shot.

 

[tuco7]

Have you tried to plug something else into the USB port to see if it works?

Have you looked in Device Manager to see if USB is functional?

 

[paulhthomas]

I tell you what it may be. I had it before, but I was using XP at the time.
I plugged in my USB pen, which seems to like mapping the E drive.
On the pc in question I already had an E drive so I assumed it would map as F or whatever the next available drive letter would be. It didn't!
I opened up my "E drive" which according to explorer was linking to \\servername\sharename, and on entering it, it gave me the contents of the pen. bizarre!

 

[xwb]

Are you using the pen drive directly or through a hub/extension cable. Sometimes they do not work over extension cables.

 

[tazuk]

niallo32 --

After plugging the stick in, check the Disk Management console. This can be accessed by right-clicking "My Computer" and selecting the "Manage" option.

You should be able to locate the stick based on size / other details - if so then I'd suggest changing it's Drive Letter assignment to avoid similar problems in future.

eg. I have a 20gb USB MP3 player / HDD that I've assigned to Drive Letter Z to prevent clashes with mapped network drives on my laptop.

If the above method doesn't enable you to find the stick drive then you may have USB issues.

HTH

TazUk

Blue-screening PCs since 1998