USB Storage Device not being detected

I have a USB Storage Device (SanDisk Cruzer Switch) that isn't being detected on any computer that I plug it into; tried on Mac and Windows computers.

I recently formatted it as a bootable USB with HP USB Disk Format Utility with the MS-DOS option ticked. I was planning to use the USB to update my BIOS on another computer. However, when I unplugged the USB from my computer and plugged it into the computer that I was working on it wouldn't show up in the BIOS Boot Menu. Tried it on other computers to see if it would appear but no visible or audible notifications appeared.

The USB doesn't show up in Device Manager or Disk Management either.

If your pen drive does not show up in any of the working computers, I would presume it is dead and discard it or get a warranty replacement.

To get going with the task of updating BIOS from a bootable DOS drive, use RUFUS, a very nifty tool,, to create your DOS bootable pen drive. Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way



Verify the correct pen drive is shown, give it a new volume label as you want, check all the boxes under the Format Options, "Create a bootable disk using" select MSDOS from the dropdown menu and click on start. Done.

[I do use HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool v2.2.3 - the last version that could format >2TB USB drives, but had never used it to create a bootable DOS drive. Just to check on it, I created a bootable DOS disk with it, feeding Windows 98 System files (DOS) and was able to boot into DOS, no difficulties.



A Full Format is advisable by removing the check mark on Quick Format.

Now I want to ask the following questions;

1. After writing DOS, did you check the DOS files had indeed been written to the pen drive? ( You have to unhide hidden files and protected system files in Folder Options>View)

2. After writing the BIOS files into that pen drive, did you check again?

3. Did you safely remove the pen drive or just pulled it?

4. Did you remove, replug it, restart, get into the one time boot menu and check you could get into DOS prompt on the same computer you created it? ]

Glad to see the Solved tick mark on this thread.:)