Solved 8Gb Flash stick not seen... help!

[Kahbrohn]

Hi!

I have seen some similar problems mentioned within this site and others. I have tried some of the recommendations but to no avail.

Weird thing happening to my system. Until recently I was using a usb flash stick just fine. Centon Prostick, 8Gb. I now can not see it in my "Computer" panel BUT I do see it in device manager. It has a drive letter assigned to it an all. I just don't have access to it.

Ok... the weird part is... that's on my user account. On my wife's user account on the same machine... she see's it just fine and has full access/usage of the flash stick.

I have all access permissions within Win 7 64-bit, SP1.

Ideas? I have so far uninstalled, re-installed, deleted, and a few more ideas I came across while googling this problem including downloading any new driver and changing the drive letter and such (yes, I have "control" over it from within device manager). Nada... I tried this with a different stick I had laying around and the same thing. I am at work right now and the 8Gb stick works here just fine and on my kids laptops at home. Re-formatted it several times already (Fat32, NTFS [or whatever]). No good. The alternate 512Kb stick I have has the same exact issue.

I thought about a Windows re-install BUT my wife can see the sticks just fine under her account with the same OS (same machine in other words). I am not convinced it's the OS itself but a "setting" somewhere in the OS or registry maybe? If I go into device management and do an open folder or explore to the device, I can access it and even copy files to/from it. It's just... well... invisible under my account's computer panel!!!

It's not life or death but it is intriguing as all heck now. Thanks for any advice or help with this.

 

[Kahbrohn]

Ok... SOLVED. And here I blamed Windows 7. I must never forget my first rule when trouble shooting. Always assume you did something wrong and check everything.

Ok... so I was right. It was a setting. I recently bought and installed TuneUp Utilities. It has a feature to allow you to show or hide (not make them inaccessible though - just hidden) drives. I guess it's an added security layer against hackers or nosey spouses. Anyways, it seems like I deselected all the drive letters except for C:, D: and E:. I just re-selected all drive letters and now my flash drives shows up again.

If anyone gave this any thought... thanks anyways!