USB Flash Drive showing up as "Local Disk" in Windows 7

SlashEmUp · 29 Jul 2013

Hello,

So I have a 64GB USB Flash Drive (Centon DataStick Sport). I had not used the drive in several months until the other day when I plugged it into my computer and it asked me to reformat it. I don't know why it asked me to reformat it, but it might have been due to water damage (I had carried it in my backpack and water may have hit it. I'm not quite sure).

I reformatted the drive using NTFS file system and everything is fine aside from one thing; when I plug it in, it shows up as a "Local Drive" under "Hard Drives" like my WD 1TB drive does. I would think that it should show up under 'Devices with removable storage" but it does not.

Does anyone know why this is?

Thanks.

maxie · 30 Jul 2013

Hi SlashEmUp Welcome to Seven Forums .. Right click on the Usb Drive propertys/hardware uninstall the Driver . Then unplug the Flash Drive .. Re-Install .. See if that works

bobafetthotmail · 30 Jul 2013

I would run a full disk check (both options checked) to see if it is damaged (in the report look for "damaged sectors", if it is higher than 0 then you have problems). Asking to be formatted could mean it is damaged.

If plugged in another PC still acts the same (or if what maxie says does not work), you might have managed to "flip the removable bit" by accident (that's the jargon, don't look at me that way).
Windows asks to the device if it is removable. What the device answers depends from a "bit", a number in its controller's programming. This can be changed with tools or by accident.

If the device answers that it's "not removable", windows 7 will treat it as an hard disk. If it's the case, you will be able to multi-partition it and all partitions will be detected. Removable devices can only have one partition for windows 7, any further partition is not detected.

Either way, it's not a major issue if the disk check says it's fine.

SlashEmUp · 30 Jul 2013

First off, thanks to both of you for the timely response.

Following what you both said, I ran the disk check and attempted to uninstall the drivers. Disk Check showed no errors and everything was good. I also plugged it into my laptop and it also shows up as a Local Disk.

Interestingly enough, when I went into Properties and then Driver, the option to uninstall the driver was greyed out and the only option was to view the Driver Details (see this pic: 93d8b7f9be12ce238819a1fb032572fb.png).

So, it seems to me that I may have switch the removable bit by accident and now Windows is treating it as a hard drive. In any case, it's not too big of a deal since it's working but I'd prefer it to be under "Devices with Removable Storage"

mohavepc · 30 Jul 2013

seems to be a "common issue" these days. here is another discussion about this same issue. it could be a corrupt USBstor.sys file (Driver) See the other thread here

mohavepc · 30 Jul 2013

Britton just reminded me about a recent article from SanDisk with might make more sense about this issue. I have a feeling Many manufactures are going to be following suit. Thank you Britton for the heads up.
See sandisk article here

Britton30 · 30 Jul 2013

Thank you Herb, here's the link to the SanDisk explanation.
Flash Drive shows as Hard Disk Drive (Fixed Disk) in Windows Explorer

Trakeen · 02 Dec 2013

So I've seen why the problem exists, but has anybody found a solution for this?

The HP recovery software, on their laptops, running windows 8 will allow you to create a restore partition on a flash drive, but it will only do it if the drive is recognized as removable storage. As long as it's marked local disk it won't recognize the drive as a valid type of media.

Don't want to shell out the money for another flash drive that I'll have to research to make sure it will work with the software, and I haven't been able to find a compatibility list on HP's site yet.

Any ideas?

Britton30 · 02 Dec 2013

Welcome to Seven Forums Trakeen.

No solution has been found. The newer USB flash sticks if certified for Win 8 will appear as a fixed disk, another way MS tells us what we want. My drive was a SanDisk, the op's a Centon and I don't know if other makers have followed like lemmings or not.

First I'd recommend against using a flash drive for a recovery they can be unreliable and be corrupted easily. I would use a USB hard drive (HDD) in an enclosure. I have a 500GB and 750GB ones I used in this way.

Secondly if the HP software creates a factory recovery it will back up all the included HP bloatware, if not it may copy over temp files and the page file which isn't needed for a recovery and can increase the recovery size a lot.

I use this Imaging with free Macrium and it is very reliable making the image fairly small while retaining the entire OS, program, settings, drivers, etc.

thrash16er · 16 Sep 2015

I am having the same problem centon 64gig stick told me I had to format it gets to about 98% and says it cannot be done now the stick is not recognized when I plug it in the LED light stays lit and does not blink what do I do I tried uninstalling driver and reinstalling and nothing still