Flash Drives in Vista
Sat, 03/10/2007 - 01:31 — Storytell
I have Vista Home Premium and it refuses to accept my flash drives in the USB port. I have tried three different ones and if I get it to work for 2 minutes when I try to write to it it hangs the system. Any help?
Please!
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I took my Memorex
I took my Memorex Traveldrive and the Cruizermini-both 1GB to Best Buy where I bought the Traveldrive. They were able to use both drives on an HP machine running Vista just by plugging them in. Needless to say I was p---ed. I came home and took my machine to the Data Doctors for a free checkup since I had spent about an hour on the phone with them last Saturday after their computer show. They could not get the drives to work and their know good drives would also not work. I stopped by Best Buy and had the Geek Squad try their luck. Same results. They suggested that I do a restore on the system as far back as I could go. Since I had transferred all the information to my new computer thru laplink software, I had nothing to loose. I did the restore and downloaded the windows updates. I also did the MacAfee updates and thus far the drives work. I still have to do the transfer from the old computer soooo we will see.
I forgot to add that the
I forgot to add that the flash drives now work and as I bring on various software, I keep checking the flash drives to make sure they still work. I haven't done the laplink transfer as of yet.
Flash Drives and Vista Ultimate
When I originally started using Vista (testing Beta 2 and forward) I had no problem using my 512 MB SanDisk Cruzer USB drive. but after I went to the RTM Ultimate, I decided to buy a new USB drive, and opted for a nice, cheap PNY 2.0 GB U3 device - I liked the idea of having portable apps.
Well, I get to Vista and the ****** thing won't work. So I did some research. It turns out that the U3 software system will only run on Vista with versions 1.4 or later - and that there was a caveat to that as well, because certain firmware numbers for SanDisk drives will work with Vista and certain Firmware will not.
Using the U3 system on XP was easy and fast - I added a lot o apps quickly, but further research led me to some interesting conclusions:
1) U3 will not *ever* host a downloadable upgrade for their software - they claim that the manufacturer should keep the updates (but when I went and checked PNY's site, no updates *and* no real good contact system either).
2) The version on my U3 stick was 1.1.0.2 - obviously a very old version indeed - it does not even have a built-in update checker, which newer versions should have.
3) U3 is only one of several systems that can be used on USB sticks - another one is called portable apps, available from http://portableapps.com/ - not only is this software Open Source, but it works in a much better manner, without requiring and additional 'drive / ROM virtual drive' - it simply runs off an auto run file so your computer will run the software as long as autorun is turned on for removable drives (and it works perfectly on Vista).
4) Even though it was cheap, it was a wasted $30 on the 2.0 GB drive as I could have used Portable apps on my original 512 MB drive....
Ah, well. Live and learn.
One program incompatability
One program incompatability was the software for Netgear's SC101. I upgraded to Vista and so the software was installed from my old OS. Now I can't run the NAS that used the SC101 software but I can use any USB drive I want.
Just manually install the
Just manually install the drivers, they are on your machine. vista is just too stupid to see them. browse your computer goto C:/windows/system32
make sure include subfolders is checked and it will find the drivers fast.
he he he
You, sir, deserve a medal.
"browse your computer goto C:/windows/system32
make sure include subfolders is checked and it will find the drivers fast"
This worked PERFECTLY for me, and helped fix something else I was having trouble with as well. Thank you!
Thanks for the Awesome Info!!
I too was having trouble getting my Flash Drives to work with this 'lovely' Vista software and I just ran across your suggestion to browse the C:/Windows/system32 file. I was pulling my hair out trying to figure this out and your suggestion worked perfectly. Thanks!! You rock!!
C:/Windows/system32 file.
What you change when you get to C:/Windows/Sistem32file.
my usb flash is not working
SOLUTION to Vista USB FLASH DRIVE PROBLEM
Try this it worked perfect for me:
So Click 'Start', right click 'Computer' and click 'Manage', on the left pane go on Device manager, and locate your 'bad devices', indicated by an exclamation (!) or question mark(?) on the icon.
Right click the device you want to install, and click 'Update driver software'.
From here you want to 'Browse my computer for browser software', and then tell it to search. 'C:\Windows\System32'.
Leave it a while and you may just be blessed with your screen.
This is the bug in Vista, It finds the drivers, but it cannot install them as it 'cannot find them'.
Reason for this is, it searches System32 for the drivers, and finds them in System32, but it tries to install them from C:\Windows\INF
SOLUTION:
Now that you've located the drivers, this is where we can find the solution (the above was nessicary for this part),
Everytime you try and install a device, Windows creates a log of it, and inside this log it will tell you what file it's trying to locate in C:\Windows\INF.
Open this log by hitting Winkey + R (or using start search), type 'C:\Windows\inf\setupapi.dev.log' and hit enter.
This will open a big notepad document, you'll need to scroll all the way to the bottom to find the latest driver installation, ie. your failed one.
Find the highlighted partion in your log, and take note of the name of the .inf file in C:\Windows\INF. For me, that is monitor.inf.
Now open up the C:\Windows\ folder, and in the folder search type your .inf file name, leave it a while and you will get some results.
You need to copy [NAME].inf (monitor.inf for me) that appears, to C:\Windows\INF and then attempt to install the drivers again, do this as the first part of the thread says to do.
This should now install your drivers and your device will work as it should.
USb flash
browse your computer goto C:/windows/system32
Can you explain this part better i am a new at this but both of my usb don not work on vista
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