I don't know what happened, but I hope one of our computer gurus can help.
My wife uses a Sandisk mini-Cruzer USB flash drive to transfer work between home and school. The drive worked at her school computer this afternoon, but, after my attempts to use a USB hub this evening, now is not recognizable.
Having more USB devices than USB ports (2.0) on my wife's laptop, I bought a cheap, powered GE USB hub (1.0, knowing it would be slower, but not minding because of price). I plugged in my printer, which worked fine. I plugged in my CF card reader, which worked fine. I plugged in the Cruzer flash drive, but got a message that this was a 2.0 device that would not work well on a slower hub and advising me to find a 2.0 slot via the device manager to plug into. I closed out the message, went to the device manager just to check (really didn't know what I was doing, but looked anyhow, and didn't do anything but look). I then unplugged the Cruzer drive, unplugged the hub and plugged the Cruzer drive back into the computer proper, just the way my wife always uses it.
Now, the problem...the computer will no longer read the presence of the flash drive as a "removable" drive (E, normally). To make sure the USB port was active, I checked the device manager (all ports working and ready to use), then plugged in the printer to each available port. In each case, the printer, thus the port, was working. I plugged the flash drive back in, but no go.
I went to the Sandisk web site, where they gave detailed instructions on editing the registry (horrors...I know Mac, not PC). Before doing this, though, I took the flash drive to my desk computer to which the flash drive had never been
connected and which should, therefore, have no possible registry problem. Being plug and play, the flash drive should read instantly, just like it did on my wife's computer (both use Windows XP Pro). Unfortunately, the flash drive was not recognized on my computer either.
Because the flash drive would not register on my computer or on my wife's, and because other USB devices do work in all USB ports on both computers, I assume that the problem is not my wife's computer, but in the flash drive.
Questions, now, are these:
1. What, if anything, did I do wrong? All literature says the flash drive is backward compatible, albeit slower in a 1.0 connection.
2. How might I fix my problem?
3. What am I missing that I should know, but don't?
Any help will be rewarded by the great computer gods in cyberspace, not to mention being greatly appreciated my lovely wife. Remember, "If momma ain't happy..."
Joe
The Cruzer is USB 2.0, but, according to advertisement, is backwards compatible with 1.0.
