I have looked at past posts relating to USB pen drives and can't find a problem similar to mine. I have a HP PC at work with XP SP2 OS (its not networked). Each time I plug in a USB pen drive the device is detected and the install message tells me the driver has been installed and the device is ready to use. Unfortunately the second time I plug in the pen drive it isn't recognised and doesn't appear as a drive on My Computer. I have tried using 3 different brand pen drives and each time the same thing happens - the drive is recognised and installed, but only works once.

I have checked the device manager and the drivers are showing for each pen drive as operating correctly.

The ports appear to be working properly as I have successfully connected my USB HDD and headphone set through the same ports.

I'm thinking about suggesting a Vista upgrade as I have had no driver problems at home since installing Vista, but thought I should check out if there are any cheaper solutions first. Any suggestions?

cheers, Al

Hi,

Did you try assigning the drive a specific and unique drive letter?
How to change drive letter assignments in Windows XP - you can also check within Drive Management to see that, when the drive is plugged in, it is actually recognized properly.

Thanks Hengis, I will look at the drive management on Monday and get back to you. If I assign a new drive letter will that be the same for any of the USB ports on the machine that I plug the pen drive in to?

cheers, Al

Should be ok with that, yes.

Hengis, your suggestion worked perfectly. I'm not sure how you mark this thread as sorted. Many thanks for your help. Al

No problem

Marked as [Fixed]