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Win98 won't recognize flash disks

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Steve19

Steve19

Watching. Always watching.
Staff member
Soon after Clarity recommended them for their sterling customer service, I bought a Dell laptop. Actually, it is the only brand Ohio State would let faculty buy, but anyway, I have a Dell Inspiron 5000e running Win98.

My problem: I can't get the bloody thing to recognize my flash disks. It sees them in the USB port, signals that it is installing new hardware and then can't read the thing.

I suspect that some Willy must have tried to plug in a flash disk and access my hard drive while I was out of the room at some lecture because the software for my flash disk says to make sure you load the software prior to putting the flash disk into the machine the first time if usng Win98. But maybe it's something else.

Anybody had this experience (Clarity, I share your pain) and has a solution?
 
ugh, I ran into this problem with a laptop I have to use at work that runs win98. you have to actually create a new drive and assign it a drive letter or something. I know this isnt very helpful or descriptive, but maybe it will point you in the right direction. I honestly forget what we had to do to get it to work.
 
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Check what brand your flash disk is. Then google for that company's website and look for a "support" or "drivers" link. You have to install drivers for flash drives on win98--they are only plug'n'play on win2k up.
 
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Hodge said:
Check what brand your flash disk is. Then google for that company's website and look for a "support" or "drivers" link. You have to install drivers for flash drives on win98--they are only plug'n'play on win2k up.
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I have the CD with the drivers that came with the flashdrive. I have installed and uninstalled the driver, gone into the system and removed the USB drive and let it recognize it and reinstall it. Nothing works!
 
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Hodge said:
Check what brand your flash disk is. Then google for that company's website and look for a "support" or "drivers" link. You have to install drivers for flash drives on win98--they are only plug'n'play on win2k up.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what to do.

Also, if no dice, check out a manual because somewhere there has to be directions on what to do on the Win 98 OS.
 
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Fair enough. I found this on changing drive letters in win98 (I could tell you how to if it was XP, but it's been too long since I've used 98). This could be the problem that windows is recognizing the disk but doesn't have a drive letter, or has a drive letter that is reserved for something else. If not, we'll try something else.

EDIT: Be careful doing this stuff. It shouldn't let you mess with your c: drive, but don't do anything you're not sure of.

  • Double-click on the System icon in Control Panel, and click on the Device Manager tab.
  • Find the device (CD-ROM drive, or otherwise) that you wish to configure from the list, and select it.
  • Click Properties, and then click the Settings tab.
  • In the section entitled Reserved drive letters, choose the same letter for both the Start drive letter and End drive letter.
  • If the Removable option is not checked, and the reserved drive letters listboxes are disabled, check it now. If initially unchecked, make sure to uncheck it again when you're done with this procedure.
  • You'll have to restart your computer for this change to take effect.
Click to expand...
 
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Well I will definitely say that it's not unusual to have problems with Win98 and anything USB related. So if the machine can handle it, I'd definitely put XP on there.

So when you plug the drive in, it DOES recognize that you did so, but it doesnt show up anywhere eh. That is interesting enough. I really dont know if I could answer that without seeing it up close. Windows 98 always had awful device support though, so after reading that I just have to shake my head and look confused :biggrin:
 
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fyi,

I've seen this problem often on XP systems. Two ways I've fixed it:

1) Go into Disk Management, and make sure Windows didn't assign the USB drive the same letter as a mapped network drive. I see this happen all the time. If so, change the drive letter. Stupid Microsoft.

2) Double-click the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the tray. Check the "Display device components" box in the bottom of the window. Right-click the "Generic Storage Device" entry and choose Properties. Choose the "Volumes" tab then hit the "Populate" button. I've seen this a couple times. Once you hit Populate it assigns the drive letter.

I'm not sure if either of these applies to Win98, but it's just fyi.
 
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No 98 is quite a bit different.

I think XP at least says something if the drive letters conflict (like you said, with a mapped drive or whatnot). Kinda odd for it to act like it detects the drive, gives no errors, and then it's just not visible. If it was XP, that would be real strange.
 
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BrutusMaximus said:
I think XP at least says something if the drive letters conflict (like you said, with a mapped drive or whatnot). Kinda odd for it to act like it detects the drive, gives no errors, and then it's just not visible. If it was XP, that would be real strange.
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I've had that exact problem with XP. Jump drive and mp3 player install and all, but they try to show up as my h: drive which is a mapped drive. So they are recognized, but don't show up in my computer. I had to re-map drive letters from the disk manager.
 
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