Flash Drive problems

Hi guys,


I am running 32- Bit Home Premium and the other day I bought a PQ1 U339
Flash Drive for the memory boost, when I plugged it in the USB socket and
went to locate it I could not find the removable drive where it should be so
therefore am unable to use it . I then went to Computer Management /
Storage / Disk Management and it was there on removable disk "j" which does
not exist as a removable drive on my pc, the conclusion I can only come to
is that the U339 is not compatible with vista which makes it a waste of
money and very disappointing, has any body had problems using flash drive
devices with Vista? any feedback/recommendations would be welcome.

Thanks

Hi, Casandra.

I'm not familiar with that specific make or model flash drive, but I've used
several - from 128 MB USB 1 to 2 GB USB 2 - in my last 3 computers, running
both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of WinXP and Vista. All have worked
properly for me. ;<)

When you plug in the flash drive, it BECOMES a "drive", so far as Vista is
concerned, and gets assigned a drive letter. If you don't give different
instructions, it will be assigned the next available letter. I prefer for
each device to keep the same letter from one insertion to the next, so I use
Disk Management to assign letters that I can remember, like R: for RamBoost
and S: for my SanDisk card reader. (Yes, "drive" letters also get assigned
to devices other than drives, such as digital cameras and card readers and
network drives.) Most flash drives come pre-formatted; if that one did not,
you should have Disk Management do that for you. I also have Disk
Management write a "label" to each drive; this gets written to the disk and
does not change, even if the device is assigned a different letter in a
later session.

Disk Management is one of the most useful utilities in Windows 2000 and
later. Among other uses, you can right-click on that "disk" in the far-left
column of the Graphical View, then click Properties and the Policies tab.
There you can choose between Optimize for quick removal and Optimize for
performance. I always choose quick removal, then I never have to worry
about losing data that hasn't yet been written to the drive; I never see the
"Safe to remove device" popup message.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail 2008 in Vista Ultimate x64)

"casandra" <> wrote in message
news:99bfj.22281$...
> Hi guys,
>
>
> I am running 32- Bit Home Premium and the other day I bought a PQ1 U339
> Flash Drive for the memory boost, when I plugged it in the USB socket and
> went to locate it I could not find the removable drive where it should be
> so therefore am unable to use it . I then went to Computer Management /
> Storage / Disk Management and it was there on removable disk "j" which
> does not exist as a removable drive on my pc, the conclusion I can only
> come to is that the U339 is not compatible with vista which makes it a
> waste of money and very disappointing, has any body had problems using
> flash drive devices with Vista? any feedback/recommendations would be
> welcome.
>
> Thanks

I just bought a Corsair 16 GB Flash Voyager, opened the package, plugged it
in, Vista Home Premium loaded a driver, and it works just fine. It shows up
as a Device with Removable Storage. I'm not using it for ReadyBoost.
It also automatically worked on one of my XP computers, and on my Home
Server.


--
http://get.live.com/wlmail/overview

"casandra" <> wrote in message
news:99bfj.22281$...
> Hi guys,
>
>
> I am running 32- Bit Home Premium and the other day I bought a PQ1 U339
> Flash Drive for the memory boost, when I plugged it in the USB socket and
> went to locate it I could not find the removable drive where it should be
> so therefore am unable to use it . I then went to Computer Management /
> Storage / Disk Management and it was there on removable disk "j" which
> does not exist as a removable drive on my pc, the conclusion I can only
> come to is that the U339 is not compatible with vista which makes it a
> waste of money and very disappointing, has any body had problems using
> flash drive devices with Vista? any feedback/recommendations would be
> welcome.
>
> Thanks

"casandra" <> wrote in message
news:99bfj.22281$...
> Hi guys,
>
>
> I am running 32- Bit Home Premium and the other day I bought a PQ1 U339
> Flash Drive for the memory boost, when I plugged it in the USB socket and
> went to locate it I could not find the removable drive where it should be
> so therefore am unable to use it . I then went to Computer Management /
> Storage / Disk Management and it was there on removable disk "j" which
> does not exist as a removable drive on my pc, the conclusion I can only
> come to is that the U339 is not compatible with vista which makes it a
> waste of money and very disappointing, has any body had problems using
> flash drive devices with Vista? any feedback/recommendations would be
> welcome.
>
> Thanks

Casandra, I am using a PNY Optima Pro Attaché, 4GB. It stays plugged into
my HP desktop/2GB memory and it works well. I did reformat it prior to use.
http://www2.pny.com/category_buymult...ategory_ID=292

Ron

All flash memory is compatible with Vista. You've got a driver mishap
problem. There is a chance that some of the *usb* files are missing in
Windows\inf. there should be 26 of them.

Now, how to get around or rather ahead? If you see an exclamation sign in
Device manager against some USB composite devices, then uninstall it. Reboot
the computer (no USB in the slot). See if the exclamation sign disappeared.
If it did, try to plug in your memory. If it is recognized you won, if not
it will try to "find software for the unknown device." It won't. It will
give you an option to choose a source for the driver. Try to point at
Windows\system32. It may / may not work. if it does not, check the event
log. There is a simple way to analyze the latest errors and find out if
files are missing. most likely the files won't be named. they are incognito.
At least you will know for a fact that the system had inf file and tried to
locate sys files but could not find them or whatnot.

Try to do the whole thing again and point this time to your installation /
recovery cd. Perhaps the drivers will be located in there.

In the even log there is a link to MS website where those specific errors
(by numbers) are more or less described in plain English.

You've got a problem which is common to all OSs. It is not an exclusive
Vista affair. I've had it in XP all along.

"casandra" <> wrote in message
news:99bfj.22281$...
> Hi guys,
>
>
> I am running 32- Bit Home Premium and the other day I bought a PQ1 U339
> Flash Drive for the memory boost, when I plugged it in the USB socket and
> went to locate it I could not find the removable drive where it should be
> so therefore am unable to use it . I then went to Computer Management /
> Storage / Disk Management and it was there on removable disk "j" which
> does not exist as a removable drive on my pc, the conclusion I can only
> come to is that the U339 is not compatible with vista which makes it a
> waste of money and very disappointing, has any body had problems using
> flash drive devices with Vista? any feedback/recommendations would be
> welcome.
>
> Thanks

casandra wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
>
> I am running 32- Bit Home Premium and the other day I bought a PQ1 U339
> Flash Drive for the memory boost, when I plugged it in the USB socket
> and went to locate it I could not find the removable drive where it
> should be so therefore am unable to use it . I then went to Computer
> Management / Storage / Disk Management and it was there on removable
> disk "j" which does not exist as a removable drive on my pc, the
> conclusion I can only come to is that the U339 is not compatible with
> vista which makes it a waste of money and very disappointing, has any
> body had problems using flash drive devices with Vista? any
> feedback/recommendations would be welcome.
>
> Thanks

Try formatting it while you are in Disk Management. The OS
will not display an unformatted drive in the (My) Computer
window.

Hobo