Windows 10: USB flash drives and Windows 11 don't play well together

I have a brand-new Dell XPS 8960 with 64Gb memory, 1Tb SSD, 2Tb Sata drive, 4Tb WD attached drive running Windows 11 All software is current.My problem is with "USB flash drives" my WD attached drive works great:1. I can read from, write to or format any USB flash drive.2. If I try to safely "Eject" that drive, I get the same "It's being used" error I see listed on this forum.3. If I try to make a bootable USB drive or make a system image, it thinks my USB flash drive 64Gb isn't big enough and won't finish the process.NOTE: This is a Windows 11 problem Never had a problem before. Pleas

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USB Flash drive not seen on Laptop running Windows 11

Hi,EliBiek

Welcome to the Microsoft Community.



I'm sorry to hear that neither Windows 11 laptops nor Android phones recognize USB flash drives. Here are some steps you can take to try to retrieve data from a potentially damaged or corrupted USB flash drive:



1.Check the USB connection: Make sure the USB port you are using is working properly. Try connecting the USB flash drive to a different USB port on our laptop.



2.Using a different computer: Try connecting the USB flash drive to another computer to see if it is recognized. This will help determine if the problem is with the USB drive itself or the laptop.



3.Check Disk Management (Windows):

• Press Windows Key + X and select Disk Management.
  
• Look for the USB flash drive in the list of drives. If it appears but does not have a drive letter assigned, you may need to assign a drive letter to access it.
  

If none of these steps help to retrieve data from the USB flash drive and the data on the USB flash drive is critical, it is advisable to stop trying to access it further to prevent any further damage. Recovering data from a physically damaged drive is very complicated and you may consider seeking the help of a professional data recovery service. They have specialized tools and expertise to recover data from damaged storage devices.

Best Regards

Martin | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

 

help. USB drive isn't assigned a drive letter.

Any usb flash drive I plug into my computer isn't assigned a drive letter. The physical drive shows in the "safely remove hardware" but it doesnt show up in disk management. I have tried to populate the volume thru the safely remove hardware properties window and it does pop up in the list but it doesn't stay there. This isn't a format or assign a letter problem. It's more complicated then that. Maybe one of the services needed for usb drive management was disabled? Suggestions needed. btw external usb harddrives work fine.

 

USB Flash Drive Not Recognised

To find what Navy suggest:: Open a CMD window as administrator and type: diskpart list disk (it will list all drives. Identify the USB drive number) select disk n (replace n by the USB drive number obtained with list disk) list part (is there more than one partition?) select part 1 detail part (is it ntfs or Fat32?) exit