USB drive cannot be found in My Computer

Sometimes, when you plug in a flash drive, it does not show up ... thus not giving you the access to the files that you need right NOW!

To explain this phenomena open the My Computer icon and notice that there are a number of drives with associated drive letters.

Normally the computer assigns the next free drive letter to any new device that is connected, but sometimes this does not happen. The computer wants to assign a drive letter to a device that is already taken. When this happens the device (USB drive, ect...) is connected but not available.

To solve this problem, the drive letter will need to be manually assigned.

1). Go to the My Computer icon and right click on it.

Then choose Manage from the drop down menu.









The Computer Management window will appear, which can be modify certain aspects of windows.

2). From the left-hand side menu choose Disk Management.
The main window on the right should now display the drives (Volumes).















3). Scroll down the list of drives (Disk 0, Disk 1, ect...) and find the USB drive.
*It should be the one that does not have a letter assigned to it.
When the drive is found, right click on it and from the menu choose Change Drive Letter and Paths ...











4). From the Change Drive Letter and Paths ... window choose Change and from the dropdown, change the letter to G, or H (These are not normally used here) and then OK.
*A warning message may appear about changes the drive letter, normally this is not a problem, click OK or Close to continue.























When this is complete the drive will appear in the My Computer windows.