Hi,

I have a big problem, none of my flashcards (i have one mp3 stick, a photocamera (CF) , a navigation system (SD) and some other cards i use) are accessable under XP
Something has happened that caused the folowing problem: at any connection of these flashdevices windows xp recognises the hardware, but if i try to acces them (for instance in explorer) i get the message - not formatted, do you want to format now?
On other pc's these cards are readable, so there's nothing wrong with them.
But the weirdest thing is i have a USB telephone, 2x USB Hdd drives, a USB mouse, a USB controller, a USB printer, and they all work fine!
I have tried to renew the USb storage drivers, device drivers and so on but nothing works, i still can't acces any Flashcard
Does any of you have a suggestion what to do except reinstall XP (really don't won't to do that :-))

cheers,

Nick

Did they ever work on this computer?

That's quite a bit of USB hardware. Is any of it self-powered?

Just as a test I would try removing the 2 external drives and see if there is a difference.

Try different ports as well.

Not all of these usb-devices are connected simultaniously, i also tried accessing the flashcards with no other USB device attached, and i have tried all of the available USB ports.

It's very strange that any USB-device will work, accept anything with a flashmemory, the system wants it formatted (and i tried that.... but it always results in a failure message stating that formating can't be succesfully finished)
All the devices worked perfectly before on the same computer.( and still work fine on any other computer)

Normally a USB-port works or it doesn't , but never selectivly:-)

Thanks for the reply!

cheers,

Nick

Just searching:

http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=823011

Well, that doesn't sound good.....
i have tried deleting registry entries (ofcourse one has to change permissions) but it didn't result in any change.
A moment ago i tried the tip to remove a certain file in the inf directory, but it didn't work either.
I really don't want to reinstall XP because that would cost me a few days (to get the machine installed the way i want it)

Anyway thanks for the tip!

cheers,

Nick

Did you reboot after the above changes?

Yes i did.

It seems Windows is accessing the flashcards with the expectation to find a different filesystem.
What is strange also, in system manager - drive manager i can see the usb-device (camera or mp3 player) and it says its status is OK (with the correct amount of Mb's )
But as soon as i try to acces the device, the 'want to format' error is displayed.

cheers,

Nick

Open Disk Management and check the file system.

Just to verify:

These drives did work at some point on this computer?

These drives do work on other computers?

What happens if you insert a blank drive?

Originally Posted by jephree

Open Disk Management and check the file system.

Just to verify:

These drives did work at some point on this computer?

These drives do work on other computers?

What happens if you insert a blank drive?

The drives worked perfectly on this system before - hardware is unchanged
I can plug any of these devices into another system and they all work at once
I have tried a 'new' usb mp3 player (the one from my daughter) , it gives me an error and on her system it gives lot's of music:-)

I have tried al kinds of file systems, FAT , FAT32 and i tried different fileblock sizes, nothing worked (format can't be completed error)

cheers,

Nick

What is the current listed file system when you look in Disk Management for these drives?

Just curious. Is it RAW?