Flash drive letter

[fourdave]

Ok, my mother-in-law just called me from her work, she is having a problem with a flash drive, the last time we visted her I told her to get a flash drive as it would be better for her to carry her files back and fourth to work, well she bought one, loaded her documents on it at home, got to work and plugged it in today, it came up and said hardware is installed and ready for use. but nothing shows up in "my computer" as a drive letter, sorry to say I am still new to flash drives ( got on the bandwagon late, just bought my own a month ago) should they always show up as a drive letter, or at least a removable disk???? could there be security enabled somewhere to not let it show up?
I know if i could see it, i could figure it out, she is to far away for me to get to. by the way the computer is WIN XP and on a local server,its a medical office so they will not let me connect to it from here. Just trying to help family

any thoughts

Dave

 

[gunslinger]

By it being a medical office they may very well have some type of security software installed that keeps flash drives locked out. I have seen this type of software on bank and police computers as well. Its put there to prevent confidential data from being taken home.
You may want to tell her to try another USB port on her computer, and try it on another computer in the office. If she tries it on another system in the office and still gets nothing, they most likely have a block installed.

 

[fourdave]

Thanks, I told her to check other computers in her office, and that it may be some sort of security thing. I will have her check with her adminstrater to see if she can even use the flash drive in the office, even though she has been doing dictations at home and bringing them in on a cd-rw, maybe a flash drive is more of a security thing? anyway thanks for the info

Dave

 

[thecoldone06]

Flash drives can carry viruses and as gunslinger said, confidential data can be taken home. Both of these worries are enough for administrators to lock out portable media as I do in my office. Security software is where my money is.

 

[14049752]

While it very well may be security software, there might be a problem assigning it a drive letter.
I've noticed sometimes if a drive letter is reserved for a mapped network connection, Windows sometimes doesn't correctly assign a letter to the device.. I think it has something to do with Windows attempting to assign the mapped (but currently unused) drive letter to the flash drive.

Anyway...rambling aside. She should check with any admins first, then if she's clear to use the flash drive, check disk management in windows to see if it's as simple as just telling windows to assign it a letter.

 

[gunslinger]

I have had that the issue with Windows not correctly assigning a letter as well. It will be one of these two things. I'm pretty sure.

 

[Jory]

Does it assign a drive letter for her at home? If so the sysadmin can probably tell her exactly why isn't not showing up at work and sort it out for her.

 

[fourdave]

Yes it give it a drive letter, I told her that her admin would have to look into it, and yes they do let them use it, "they" told her to use it, and i thought she did it on my advice, Guess that shows how much pull I really have..... lol

Dave

 

[zatblast]

not sure what causes my problem but i have a 4gb micro cruzer which when plugged into some of the dells @ the local hs, wont work however 2gb micro cruzer works for the same computers, just as the 4gb will work on some while the 2gb wont.... really annoying but i dont have the rights to go in and make settings changes so just flip flop between teh two or different computers...

 

[Trouble-Shooter]

I would check disk management in admin/tools, if you see it there, you should be able to assign a drive letter.