got a flashdrive/card reader problem

[Dave McFly]

well not me it's my buddy's PC. he just had new one put together (by me) and we got the OS in it and everything seems fine but we ran into a problem. whenever he or I plug in a flash drive or usb memory card reader into one of the 2 front or 2 in the back it makes the 'connect' sound but nothing shows up in 'My Computer'. he is the only person with an 'User Account'. when we log of it only sees his picture and name to click on to get into windows.

I rebooted in Safe Mode and it had 2 sign in icons one for Administrator, and one for 'Brian' who is the person who owns the PC and is the administrator when were are in the Normal Mode. if we plug in the flash drive/card reader into the USB it 'detects' it and we can see it in my computer and explore the contents.

if we go back to normal mode we cannot see the icon for the drive. but if we type in 'E:' in the 'address bar' in firefox or IE you can see the contents of the drive and view them no problem. any help would be grateful. My PC is a built from ground up like his and I have no such problems. both PCs are running windows XP home service pack 3 if that helps.



PS: the USB's DO work fine as the keyboard and mouse are USB and they work no problem, it is isolated to the flash drive/card readers.

 

[black_dust]

Try this

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314634

 

[Mixairian]

How old is the computer?

Many older computers have USB 1.1 for the front slots and some that have 2.0 for the front slots, may have motherboards that are not efficient at power management. Thus when you plug certain USB 2.0 devices into them, they short.