USB devices are known as Plug and Play, which means Windows usually detects devices when they are plugged in. If necessary, drivers are installed automatically. However, there may be a few additional configuration settings. If your USB device does not work after you plug it in, it is probably because of a problem with the USB Driver. For all devices except 'Mass Storage' Devices: If you plug a device to one USB port, and then you plug the same device to another USB port, a new record of the same device will be created for each USB port that you plug.
The Windows.Devices.Usb defines Windows Runtime classes that a UWP app can use to communicate with a USB device that does not belong to a device class, or for which Microsoft does not provide an in-box driver. Custom USB device access sample. 1 Fix USB Device Not Recognized Windows 10. 1.1 Quick fix ‘USB device not recognized’ error; 1.2 Update Device Drivers; 1.3 Install Latest Windows updates; 1.4 Change USB Root Hub Setting; 1.5 Disable USB Selective Suspend Setting; 1.6 Disable Fast Startup; 1.7 Tweak Windows Registry to fix Device not recognized Error.
Part 1 – Check Device ID. Press Windows Key + R and you will see that the Run dialogue pops up. Type in devmgmt.msc into the dialogue and press Enter. The command will open up the Device Manager. The Device Manager shows you all the devices that are connected to your PC including the CPU, GPU, USB devices and everything. If the aforementioned methods still don’t make your device recognisable, you could try opening Device Manager, expanding USB Serial Bus controllers. Once there, right click on USB Root Hub and click Properties. Click on the Power Management tab and uncheck the option that says “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power”.
USB drives should automatically appear in Windows Explorer when you connect them to your computer. Follow these troubleshooting steps if Windows doesn’t show a connected drive.
Diagnosing the Problem
RELATED:Understanding Hard Drive Partitioning with Disk Management
If you connected a USB drive and Windows doesn’t show up in the file manager, you should first check the Disk Management window.
To open Disk Management on Windows 8 or 10, right-click the Start button and select “Disk Management”. On Windows 7, press Windows+R to open the Run dialog, type
diskmgmt.msc
into it, and press Enter.Examine the list of disks in the disk management window and look for your external drive. Even if it doesn’t show up in Windows Explorer, it should appear here. Look for a disk that matches the size of your flash drive. Sometimes, it’ll also be marked as “Removable”, but not always.
In the screenshot below, we’ve spotted our removable drive at “Disk 3”. If you see yours, move onto the next section.
If you don’t see the drive in the Disk Management window at all, try these troubleshooting steps:
- Power On the Drive, if Necessary: Some external hard drives have their own power switches or separate power cables. If you’re using a larger drive, ensure it doesn’t have its own power switch or power cable you need to connect.
- Plug It Into a Different USB Port: Try unplugging the external drive and plugging it into a different USB port on your computer. It’s possible that one particular USB port on the computer is dead.
- Avoid USB Hubs: If you’re plugging the USB drive into a USB hub, try plugging it directly into one of your computer’s USB ports instead. It’s possible the USB hub doesn’t supply enough power.
- Try a Different Computer: Try plugging the USB drive into a different computer and see if the other computer detects it. If no computers see the drive when you connect it–even in the Disk Management window–the USB drive itself is likely dead.
Hopefully, one of these will solve your problem. If not, move onto the fixes outlined below.
Fixing the Problem
Once you’ve performed the above steps, you’re in a better place to fix the problem. Here are a few possible solutions based on what you found when searching for the drive in Disk Management.
If Windows Asks You to Format the Partition When You Insert It
If Windows can see the drive but can’t read it, it’s possible the drive was formatted with a file system Windows doesn’t normally support. For example, this can occur if you format a drive with the HFS+ file system on a Mac or with the ext4 file system on a Linux PC.
If you connect a drive with a foreign file system, Windows will tell you it needs format the drive before it can use it. Don’t format the disk yet! This will erase any files on the disk. If you don’t need the files on the disk, you can agree to format it–but be sure the drive doesn’t have any important files on it before you do.
To read a drive like this one, you can either connect it to the Mac or Linux PC it was made on, and copy your files off of it onto another drive. Alternatively, you can use software that lets you read Mac or Linux file systems in Windows. After you copy the files off the drive, you can agree to let Windows format (erase) the disk. It will appear as an empty drive that is now compatible with Windows.
If Other Windows PCs Can See the Drive, But Your Current One Can’t
If other computers detect the drive when you plug it in, but your current computer doesn’t, it’s possible there’s a driver problem in Windows.
To check for this, open the Device Manager. On Windows 8 or 10, right-click the Start button and select “Device Manager”. On Windows 7, press Windows+R, type
devmgmt.msc
into the Run dialog, and press Enter.RELATED:How to Use the Windows Device Manager for Troubleshooting
Expand the “Disk Drives” and “USB Serial Bus controllers” sections and look for any devices with a yellow exclamation mark on their icon. If you see a device with an error icon, right-click it and select “Properties”. You’ll see an error message with more information. Search the web for this error message to find more information.
To fix driver problems, you may want to right-click the device, choose Properties, and head to the Driver tab. Use the “Update Driver” button to attempt to install an updated driver, click “Roll Back Driver” to roll back the driver to a previous one if it just stopped working, or use the “Uninstall” button to uninstall the driver and hope Windows automatically reinstalls one that will work.
If You See the Drive in Disk Management, and It Has Partitions
If the drive appears in Disk Management and you see one or more partitions on the drive–with a blue bar along the top–it may not be appearing in Windows Explorer because it needs to be assigned drive letters.
To do this, right-click the partition on the drive in Disk Management and select “Change Drive Letter and Paths”. If you can’t click “Change Drive Letter and Paths”, that’s because Windows doesn’t support the file system on the partition–see below for more information.
You may see that the partition has no drive letter assigned to it. Assign a driver letter and it should just work.
How To View Usb Devices Windows
To assign a drive letter, click the “Add” button and assign a drive letter of your choice to the drive. Click “OK’ and it will appear in File Explorer or Windows Explorer with that drive letter.
If You See the Drive in Disk Management, But It’s Empty
If you see the drive in Disk Management, but it’s “Unallocated”, with a black bar along the top, this means that the drive is completely empty and unformatted. To format it, so Windows can use it, just right-click the unallocated space in Disk Management and select “New Simple Volume”.
RELATED:What’s the Difference Between FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS?
Choose the maximum possible size for the partition and assign a drive letter–you can let Windows automatically choose a drive letter. If you want the drive to be compatible with as many other operating system and devices as possible, format it with the exFAT file system when Windows asks. Otherwise, if you’re only using it on Windows machines, NTFS is fine. After it’s done, the drive should be usable.
If You See the Drive in Disk Management, But You Can’t Format It
In some cases, the drive may have a very messy partition scheme. You may even see “protected” partitions that you can’t delete from within Disk Management. Or, the partition on the drive may be too small because the drive has protected partitions wasting space on it.
You can “clean” the drive to clean up that mess, wiping all the files and partition information from the drive and making it usable once more. First, back up any important data on the drive if the drive has important data on it. The cleaning process will wipe the drive.
RELATED:How to “Clean” a Flash Drive, SD Card, or Internal Drive to Fix Partition and Capacity Problems
To clean the drive, you’ll need to open a Command Prompt window as Administrator and use the diskpart command to “clean” the appropriate drive. Follow our step-by-step instructions to cleaning a drive in Windows for more information. You can then create partitions on the empty drive.
With any luck, after following these steps, your drive will be in good working condition again.
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Universal Serial Bus Viewer (USBView) or USBView.exe is a Windows graphical UI app that you can use to browse all USB controllers and connected USB devices on your computer. USBView works on all versions of Windows.
Where to get USBView
To download and use USBView, complete the following steps:
- Download and install the Windows SDK.
- During the installation, select only the Debugging Tools for Windows box and clear all other boxes.
- By default, on a x64 PC the SDK will install USBView to the following directory.
C:Program Files (x86)Windows Kits10Debuggersx64
- Open the kits debugger directory for the processor type you're running, and then select USBView.exe to start the utility.
USBView source code
USBView is also available in the Windows driver samples repository on GitHub.
Use USBView
USBView can enumerate USB host controllers, USB hubs, and attached USB devices. It can also query information about the devices from the registry and through USB requests to the devices.
The main USBView window contains two panes. The left pane displays a connection-oriented tree view that you can use to select any USB device.
The right pane displays the USB data structures that pertain to the selected USB device. These structures include Device, Configuration, Interface, and Endpoint Descriptors, as well as the current device configuration.
Use Device Manager to display USB info
To use Device Manager to display USB info:
- Select Windows logo key+R, enter devmgmt.msc into the pop-up box, and then select Enter.
- In Device Manager, select your computer so that it's highlighted.
- Select Action, and then select Scan for hardware changes.
- Select View, and then select Hidden Devices to display additional devices (for example, those that are not currently active).
- Expand the Universal Serial Bus controllers node in Device Manager and select the device in question.
- Right-click to select Properties and view summary device status info.
- Select the Details tab to view additional info.
- Select Property to view details such as Status or Problem code.
Windows USB troubleshooter
If you're trying to diagnose a USB device that doesn't eject using the Safely Remove Hardware dialog box, try using the Windows USB Troubleshooter.