Thumb Drive Not Recognized

When you plug your thumb drive into your computer and you get a message which says 'Thumb drive not recognized', or instead nothing happens at all, then you need to sit up and take notice. This could be a sign of a bigger problem and you will need to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible.

Many people store a lot of important data on USB flash drives. The advantage of doing so is that the information can be carried around with you wherever you go, and it can be accessed on any machine by simply plugging the thumb drive into a USB port. The size of these thumb drives has grown monumentally, and you can use a thumb drive as big as 64GB today.

One of the biggest dangers of these thumb drives though, is the fact that a lot of computer viruses can travel through them. If the thumb drive was inserted into a machine that was infected, the virus comes on to the thumb drive, and it then spreads to any other machine that the thumb drive is then connected to. This can be very harmful in many cases, and it can also lead to a loss of all the information that is present on the thumb drive.

USB Thumb Remains Inaccessible

One of the clearest indicators of an infected thumb drive is when it is inserted into a machine and nothing happens. In normal circumstances, a file manager pop-up windows opens as soon as you plug the thumb drive in, and you can use this window to determine your next course of action. But when this window does not open as a result of the USB device not being recognized, you should be concerned. You can go to 'My Computer' and explore your machines devices to see if the thumb drive is visible there, but in all likelihood you will find nothing there. There are several reasons why this may happen.

• There is a virus on the thumb drive, that prevents it from functioning properly. This virus can stem from a corrupted file on the thumb drive, or from an infected machine that the thumb drive was previously inserted into.
• The physical hardware and circuitry inside the thumb drive is leading to the problem of your thumb drive not being recognized by the computer. In such a scenario, you must assume that the thumb drive is ruined permanently, and all the information on it is lost for good.
• In some cases, the device driver which runs the thumb drive may be corrupted or malfunctioning. To fix this you will need to reinstall the device drivers, which can be done by removing the thumb drive and then re-inserting it inside the USB port.
• Sometimes the USB port itself can be faulty, leading to this problem. To solve this, you can try connecting the thumb drive into a different USB port on the machine. In all likelihood, this problem will be solved instantaneously.

These are the only possible reasons that can lead to the problem of flash drive not recognized by your computer. Each of them has a very simple solution, and the flash drive problem can be fixed soon. In case there is some permanent damage to the thumb drive you must consider the information lost. In case you are facing the problem for Windows 7 or XP, then you can also follow these instructions.

• Go to the Start menu and then click on the Run option.
• Now type the command 'diskmgmt.msc' and then hit the Enter button.
• Locate the thumb drive in the lower part of the window that opens, and right-click on it.
• Now delete the partition on the thumb drive.
• Create a new partition by right-clicking on the thumb drive option. Format it in FAT or FAT32 format.
• Remove the thumb drive and reinsert it into the PC.

If you are facing the same problem on a Mac, then you may need to format the thumb drive, and ensure that your desktop is enabled to show new peripherals.