Guys 'n' Gals,

A month or so ago I tried to plug my [edit: Kingston] USB pen into my PC (XP SP2) to download some photos. The Usb pen said it was being charged but the PC seems to have no inkling that it's connected. I can't force it to pick it up when it can't see anything there at all. I've not been able to connect it to the PC since.

Can anyone suggest what might (not) be happening?

Thanks,all
--
chris


[edit; removed link]

Hi Chrissai,

Welcome to GSF. I hope you enjoy your time here.

Have you tried connecting the USB pen on a different USB port? Have you tried connecting it to a different computer/laptop? Doing this would then help us to determine if its an issue with the port, the software, or the device itself.

Have a great day
Nebon

Download this small program and see if you can even view it...



USBDeview is a small utility that lists all USB devices that currently connected to your computer, as well as all USB devices that you previously used.
For each USB device, exteneded information is displayed: Device name/description, device type, serial number (for mass storage devices), the date/time that device was added, VendorID, ProductID, and more...
USBDeview also allows you to uninstall USB devices that you previously used, and disconnect USB devices that are currently connected to your computer.
You can also use USBDeview on a remote computer, as long as you login to that computer with admin user.


http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html



WinXp Sp2 should recognize your pen drive if it is formatted..and you have the drivers installed for that USB.

Also consider..

Are you formatting the Pen Drive to a file format that is unsupported on the other computers you are trying to read it with? Pen drives generally use the FAT file format by default. If you are formatting it, for example, as FAT32 then this may be the heart of your problem.
Have the other computers had their Windows updates installed, and USB drivers/patches updated?
Have you tried using the Pen drive in other USB ports on those computers?

If the computer you are trying to use it with has only USB 1.1 available, have you tried using USB 2.0 drivers with it regardless?
Generally you shouldn’t strike problems by not using the “Safely Remove Hardware” pop-up, but are you making sure that you’ve closed all files residing on the Pen Drive before you remove it?
Perhaps the Pen Drive is faulty?

The ‘best’ way to use USB flash drives was to use them with an updated installation of Windows XP, and to use the inbuilt capability of Windows XP for them, rather than drivers or software which accompanies the devices on installation disks.