USB disks not recognized although USB mouse & keyboard are

Up until a few weeks ago everything was fine. As far as I know, no new hardware or software was installed on my Win 7 PC.

During the last few weeks, external disks or disk-on-key connected to the PC are not recognized. They do not appear in “My Computer”, there is no icon in the taskbar and of course no pop-up comes up.

I must say that the disks do get power for a few seconds and their indicators flash (on the disk itself) but after a few seconds it seems like the power is lost.

A keyboard and mouse connected through USB work fine and if I switch them to other ports and use the free ports for an external disk, the disks still don’t work. Of course I tried all ports and different external disks and disk-on-keys.

I tried booting in Safe Mode but then the mouse & keyboard didn't function.

Perhaps I should uninstall all the USB components that appear in the device manager and let them be recognized from scratch, but doing that my mouse & keyboard won’t work either and then I’m stuck. That way I won’t be able to even reset the PC.

Does anyone have an idea how to solve this? It’s really bugging me and searching online I couldn't find any similar problem (where mouse & keyboard work) and all solutions that I tried didn't help.

Thanks for your efforts!

Hi chayahd99,

Welcome on board.

Have you tried a drive cleanup?

If not try this.

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

Extract it to a folder named say DriveCleanup. You will have two folders Win32 and x64 each containing DriveCleanup.exe for 32bit and 64bit Windows respectively.

Remove all USB drives on your system (except KB/mouse). Rightclick on the appropriate .exe for your bit version and Run as administrator

Once the cleanup is over reboot your system.


(Mine is a 32bit Windows. So I had used the 32bit DriveCleanup.exe)

Please take a screenshot before you close that Window and upload.

Now connect your USB drives one by one. Are those getting installed afresh and showing up?

Thanks for the clear instructions. I tried the method you offered.
I didn't see any change (i.e. response) when connecting different USB disks, after reboot.

The screenshot is attached.
As you can see, besides registry keys, nothing else was removed.
All actions received "FAILED: Access is denied" (top of screen), this although I ran the exe as an administrator.

Any idea?

Hi There,

I'm still stuck with this issue.
Does anyone else have a solution?

Thanks!