USB drives are not seen in explorer

Some USB drives are not being seen in explorer.
If I plug in a drive to a running system windows recognizes the drive assigns a drive letter which is visible in COMPUTER MANAGEMENT but not in the explorer windows. From management I can open the drive and all is well
If I change the assigned drive letter in computer management the drive becomes visible in explorer .
All drivers are up to date and the system is usable other than the fact that the assigned drive letter is not visible in explorer and hence applications that need to browse for a file don't work well.

I suspect registry issue but not sure where to begin.
Any Ideas?

Is this a new built system or is this a prebuilt system like HP or something?

Sounds like some errors in the registry for sure, also could be a corrupt Windows installation.

You may want to start an elevated command prompt as administrator and type SFC -scannow and see if it repairs any system errors.

Weird issue for sure

See if this tutorial can help you reset the drive letters and delete old ones to start from new.

lmaneke said:

Is this a new built system or is this a prebuilt system like HP or something?

Sounds like some errors in the registry for sure, also could be a corrupt Windows installation.

You may want to start an elevated command prompt as administrator and type SFC -scannow and see if it repairs any system errors.

Weird issue for sure

Click to expand...

No errors using scannow
Its a Dell xps8700

Cliff S said:

See if this tutorial can help you reset the drive letters and delete old ones to start from new.

Click to expand...

Done most of the stuff in the tutorial before I posted--renaming the drive helps then after a reset its back to the old problem. Its as if drive letters are reserved by explorer but not by the Storage manager. Have no issues opening the drive from the management tool. ????

Have you tried disconnecting all you USB drives and rebuilding the drive letters? Try USB Oblivion.

Also check this out at TECHSPOT: Troubleshoot: Windows won't recognize USB hard drive / fix unassigned drive letter

Thanks for the idea. Still no luck in fact USB oblivion made things worse.
I have noticed that when I change drive letters on a USB drive it seems to FIX that letter to that drive--could that be true?
Perhaps the other ports on the machine also have 'fixed' or reserved letters so if I plug in something new its signature doesn't match and the drive is not displayed??
Grasping at straws here.

I saw an article on how to reset the drive letter cache once, but for the life of me I can't find it. I'll post immediately if I do.

If I change the assigned drive letter in computer management the drive becomes visible in explorer

Click to expand...

Have you tried assigning a static drive letter? You say it shows up in explorer when you change the letter in Disk Manager.

Thanks. Yes have tried that. Now the question might be how to unassigned static drive letters. It may be that some letters are reserved in explorer but not in storage management? Seems like a registry corruption to me. Might have been induced when Dell replaced the mobo

Replaced motherboard? That is a whole different situation. Same exact motherboard? Windows will see it as a entirely different computer. How was it replaced? Are you sticking your HD back into it after replacement or did the HD go with it when the MB was replaced?

You may need to do a repair install at the very least.

Also, plug in a USB drive then boot into BIOS. Does the BIOS see the drive?

I'm dreading this but think I'll have to start from scratch����������.
Took me forever to set up the environment that includes an ssd. Such is life. Thank you all for you input

popeye said:

Replaced motherboard? That is a whole different situation. Same exact motherboard? Windows will see it as a entirely different computer. How was it replaced? Are you sticking your HD back into it after replacement or did the HD go with it when the MB was replaced?

You may need to do a repair install at the very least.
Also, plug in a USB drive then boot into BIOS. Does the BIOS see the drive?

Click to expand...

You could be right with the repair install. computer management sees the flash drives which can be opened and the data accessed from computer management/storage. Seems as if there is a process not running whose purpose would be to update explorer.
BTW yes everything else works fine after the MOBO replacement--windows is happy other than this issue.

Here are the two images of the computer manager and Explorer. The disks I insert are seen and drive letters assigned. I can right click and open the drives in the manager but they fail to be shown in Explorer.

1. Try the DriveCleanup Tool
How to Cleanup and Remove old USB Mass Storage Drivers

2. Local policy can be set to hide drive letters in Explorer. Are you running Professional? Use gpedit command to check policy

If you're not running Pro, you need check the registry by hand If HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE –> Software –> Microsoft –> Windows –> CurrentVersion ->Explorer->NoDrives subkey exists, delete it. Following link describes both approaches
How to hide a drive in Windows 8 / 7

Gr11zzly said:

Thanks. Yes have tried that. Now the question might be how to unassigned static drive letters. It may be that some letters are reserved in explorer but not in storage management? Seems like a registry corruption to me. Might have been induced when Dell replaced the mobo

Click to expand...

You can try using diskpart How to Remove and Assign Drive Letters in Windows with Diskpart - Make Tech Easier

ComputerGeek said:

1. Try the DriveCleanup Tool
How to Cleanup and Remove old USB Mass Storage Drivers

2. Local policy can be set to hide drive letters in Explorer. Are you running Professional? Use gpedit command to check policy

If you're not running Pro, you need check the registry by hand If HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE –> Software –> Microsoft –> Windows –> CurrentVersion ->Explorer->NoDrives subkey exists, delete it. Following link describes both approaches
How to hide a drive in Windows 8 / 7

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input. All sounded logical but no improvement. Its not the professional version and the key in question did not exist. .
Interesting thing about the cleanup tool--After running it and restarting then plugging in the flash drive I would have expected a notification to say it was installing a driver but none came. Again the flash drive was assigned a letter and can be accessed by typing in the path or opening it from storage management but nothing in Explorer. Frustrating.
Thanks for trying