The USB device

mauricev · 21 Jul 2021

I setup two computers, a Precision T5500 and an Optiplex 9010, with Windows 21H1. When I plug in a flash drive (the actual drive I used to install the Windows, in fact) to either, nothing happens. They don't show on either in either Explorer or Disk Management.

I tried a usb wifi dongle, and it doesn't show up as a networking device in the networking control panel on either machine either. The driver does show up.

hwinfo records all the usb devices on the bus on one machine I tested, so the no-show problem is limited to the interface.

What might be causing this behavior?

Macboatmaster · 21 Jul 2021

do they show in device manager -possibly as an unknown device
are they connected direct to a usb port on the machines or via a usb hub

Have you tried hot plugging them, by that I mean loading windows and then plugging them in
In that instance does the notifications area detect the plug in.

spapakons · 22 Jul 2021

Search for and open Device Manager. Do you see any issues (yellow triangle with ! or red circle with X) ? Post a screenshot. You probably have missing drivers. Use a utility such as Snappy Driver Installer to automatically download and install the drivers.

Download (sdi-tool.org)

In very rare cases that all drivers are OK but USB devices are not detected (except for keyboard/mouse), try manually replacing any Intel USB device with the generic Standard USB device. This worked for me at an old workstation with the same issue.

mauricev · 22 Jul 2021

The drivers were loading for network devices, but they weren't showing up in the network control panel. I put the computer on the wired Ethernet and it ran Windows update. After rebooting, suddenly usb flash drives starting showing up in Explorer! The behavior is very weird. It's as if Windows 21H1 does not recognize USB flash drives until it first runs Windows Update.

spapakons · 22 Jul 2021

A case of missing drivers. Windows Update installed them and boom! USB worked.

mauricev · 26 Jul 2021

I’m sorry, but how can Windows 10 come without drivers for accessing a flash drive? Seriously, is that what you us to believe?

Macboatmaster · 26 Jul 2021

I’m sorry, but how can Windows 10 come without drivers for accessing a flash drive? Seriously, is that what you us to believe?

Were it to have been that flash drive used as it was as a bootable device, it would have been seen in boot options and worked, as indeed it did.

However once windows 10 21H1 was installed and you then proceeded to not the legacy driver for the usb as used at boot, but the windows driver for the usb, unless you chose to install it from the motherboard site, you are of course then relying on Microsoft to install it - as you say the problem was the update process was hindered by the network driver.

For your future benefit it is always best to obtain your drivers for the chipset (vital) and the network drivers, audio drivers, graphics drivers and any offered usb host controllers etc before installing 10, so that if they are not found in the installation procedure you have them.