USB (pen) drive not detected by computer

What to do when your USB pen drive is not detected by your computer?

When you insert a Pen-drive or a USB drive in your computer, you will notice that your computer detects it automatically and opens the drive to reveal it’s contents. But sometimes, it does not do that. Even when you open up My Computer, the USB drive will not be listed there!

So what do we do to fix this issue?

The fix for this is pretty simple, although I must confess, the first time I encountered this issue, I struggled for over three hours!

Click on the Start Button – select Control Panel – and then click on Administrative tools. Here, click on Computer Management. In the Computer Management window, expand Storage (click on the + sign next to it) and click on Disk Management. This will open up the Disk Management (local) snap in window.

Now, on the lower half of the right-side of the same screen, you will see that your USB / Pen-drive is listed as a removable drive. (In case you are not able to see it there, click on the + sign next to “Removable storage” and expand it.

You should typically see it listed as a removable disk and called Disk 1 or Disk 2. All you have to do is to right-click on it and select the “Change drive letter and paths” option and select a different drive letter for your pen drive. For example, if it is called Drive F, you can choose any other drive letter, let’s say, Drive G.

After you have done that, open My Computer again and you should be able to see your pen-drive there:

You need to keep in mind that if your pen-drive is not being listed due to a hardware problem then you will have to gift yourself a new drive.