Fixing a friends computer and usb drives/externals etc are not showing up under explorer. They show up in disk management (assigned a drive letter) and also show up in device manager and give me the option to safely remove them, but can't see them elsewhere, and when i try to explore from disk management it just brings me to the C: drive.

-Ok i was just able to access it. I can go into disk management and click on "open" and it'll bring up a blank explorer page (no address). I added a couple files, took it out to test if they were there and they were on the drive, but whenever i click on "explore" it just brings me to the c: drive. So the computer recognizes it and has access to it but it is getting confused giving it a drive name and showing it under my computer. (even though i assigned a letter to it).

I didn't think open and explore were necessarily different. Seems so. Also whenever i restart the computer it seems to lose the drive letter and go back to having no drive letter.

So to sum up:

in disk management:

assign drive letter

--> right click open--> brings up blank address page with contents of drive

--> right click explore--> shows the usb drive contents for like .5 seconds, then defaults to c: drive like it's confused.

--> go to my computer-->nothing

--> restart-->loses drive letter

All the googling i've done seems to indicate it's a drive letter issue which i realize but it loses the letter every time i restart and still doesn't show up in explorer when i add one.

[Edited on April 16, 2010 at 1:32 PM. Reason : s]

4/16/2010 1:12:12 PM

Sometimes for me external drives won't always show up in my computer, but if i type what it should be (ex. h: or i: ) into the bar, it'll open the drive

[Edited on April 16, 2010 at 1:44 PM. Reason : asdfs]

4/16/2010 1:44:05 PM

^yeah tried that too. Even though it'll pop up when i click "open" from disk management and sometimes show a letter, when i type in exactly what the letter is, say "v:\" and hit enter it'll say location not found, even though it's exactly what it's showing. (usually it's blank).

Sorry for the large photo, didn't really get a chance to edit it:

4/16/2010 1:46:18 PM