USB stick won't work with 1 of my 3 PCs (asks to be formatted)

Hi lads, I hope someone can point me in the right direction on this one.

I recently purchased a Kingston 16GB DataTraveler SE6 USB 2.0 stick.

It works without fault in my 2 laptops running Windows 7 (x32), it also works perfectly in my car stereo & Android tablet. It is formatted as FAT.

However on my desktop, running Win7 (x64) 9 times out of 10 I will get a message saying it needs formatting. 1 out of 10 it will work fine. Even if i try and format it it fails to format, both quick format and regular format.

So i've concluded that the USB stick is fine and it must be an issue on my desktop. The desktop is a fairly new build, 3 months old and I'm experiencing no other issues with it. I use a number of other external drives on usb, mini memory sticks via readers and the like without issue. All drivers in Device Manager are reporting fine. i don't unfortunately have another USB stick to test.

I can't think what the issue could be... its very annoying. Any help would be very much appreciated.

My mobo is an Asus P8Z77-V



Thanks for any help.

it maybe your usb input being damaged or being slightly unconnected from the internal header.

nothing to to with this thread but use speccy or cpuid to fill out your specs fully

pedroc1999 said:

it maybe your usb input being damaged or being slightly unconnected from the internal header.

Click to expand...

I've tried different USB ports on different headers.. but i will disconnect & reconnect the USB headers.. to see if that could possibly be the issue, highly unlikley as other usb devices all work fine on these header, cheers.

pedroc1999 said:

nothing to to with this thread but use speccy or cpuid to fill out your specs fully

Click to expand...

Well i case it does help, here is a snapshot from speccy. (rather lengthy)

http://speccy.piriform.com/results/fbmwQcG450JbYWTPwTIEpUw

OK, try this.

Download drivecleanup.zip v0.8.1 from Drive Tools for Windows

Extract it to a folder. On your Windows 7 (x32) machine, unplug all USB devices (except the USB mouse and KB), run the DriveCleanup.exe in the Win32 folder.( Right click on it and run as an administrator.

This will remove all currently non present "Storage Volumes", "Disk", "CDROM", "Floppy" USB drives and their USB devices from the device tree. Furthermore it removes orphaned registry items related to these device types and you will have a clean slate for your USB devices.

Reboot and plug-in your problem drive and check whether it is OK.

Jumanji, thanks for your advice.

Can you explain your thinking behind doing a driver sweep. I can't really see the logic here, thanks.

Also just to note it is my Win7 (x64) PC that is having the issues.

Cheers

OK, if your system is x64, you should use the DriveCleanup. exe in the x64 folder.

Why a drive cleanup is beneficial, is explained here : USB drive or flash problems? How to cleanup and remove old USB storage drivers - TechSpot Forums

In particular " Driver data associates devices with drive letters and ports. Port and drive letter conflicts may occur as you start unplugging/replugging devices"

This I thought could be the reason for the intermittent recognition of your USB device.

You can safely try this and check whether it resolves your problem. In fact any one plugging in and plugging out too many USB devices should do this cleanup periodically, to avoid any problems.

Ok thanks mate, I'll give this a shot.

Will report back, the help is much appreciated.

Does it work in the rear USB ports on the suspect PC ? ?

the question is if it works on other usb ports within the computer

It does not have any relevance to any particular port.

It removes the data/driver references from wherever these are stored as well as the registry entries pertaining to these.

If you look at the screenshot in the link I have provided, you should be able to make out this better.

Hmmmm things are not quite as they seemed at first.

It appears to be a problem with one particular USB header. I could have sworn the problem was on two different headers. But I just tested it on my many USB ports and the problem is only occurring on one header now. I would have put my mortage on it that it was not working on two different header. Admittedly i had not tried the USB header hard wired to the mobo (on the back), upon trying those all seems fine. Also i have a usb bracket on the back into another header which is fine.

I need to do some further testing to be sure but i'm guessing some damage somewhere between header and case usb ports.

I'll post back when i have diagnosed further.

Thanks for everyone input... will report back.