USB Memory Devices not 'seen'

[EtheAv8r]

UDB memory devices plugged into my system are recognised, I get the “Ding-Dong” sound when it is plugged in, and the notifier in the system tray reports on and correctly identifies the USB memory stick, but I cannot access it – it is not displayed in the drive list in My Computer, in Explorer, nor in a save location list.

I have reformatted the hard disk and performed a fresh install of everything and again I still had the same problem. I am undertaking regression testing – a real time consuming bore to try to identify the cause, so I repeated the fresh install and tested in stages.

USB memory sticks working OK after I installed Windows XP SP2 and took all the subsequent patches.

I then installed (too much) Office 2003, and added Office 2003 SP2, and all subsequent patches and recommended updates, DirectX 9.0c latest, Windows Media Player 11 and .NET Framework 3.0. USB Memory devices no available, even though they are detected, and have to be unloaded with the “Safely remove….” icon in the System Tray.

I can now revert to the OS only stage, and then test USB after each individual install to try to determine just what is killing it, but I am baffled, nothing non standard or non Microsoft has yet gone on the machine, other that the ASUS provided Chipset Drivers.

USB Mouse works OK, not tried USB Keyboard.

Any help or fixes welcomed!

[Nigelz]

I've seen that if you have mapped network drives as say e: f: etc that you don't get a drive letter, this is due to the way XP allocates drive letter assignments. Have you checked in diskmgmt.msc to see whether the key is recognised? If so then it should have a drive letter assigned (not necessarily visible in explorer) if it doesn't then you can assign one.

[EtheAv8r]

Nigelz you are a star!

I have C & D mapped (Internal SATA II hard Drives)

E & F & G are Optical drives (yes I know excessive but I have them so might as well use them - it does sort out compatability issues)

H is a mapped Network drive (Home directory - replicated My Docs) I have a Domain

S is a mapped Network drive (Software share)

The USB was in diskmgmt.msc drive list - also assigned H - good 'ol XP. I would not have thought about the OS allocating the same drive letter.

Thanks!