XP home edition won't recognize flash drive on boot up

Whenever I start my computer up after shut down, it doesn't show the flash drive that's plugged in. I have to unplug and plug it back in for it to see it. Is this normal or should I not boot up with a flash drive hooked up?

 

I tried swapping hubs and the installation failed, went back to the original hub and it's installation failed as well. I have a flash drive inserted and it's lit but my computer does see it.

 

Well I'm back to my original problem. The hub is recognized but not the flash drive after restart.

 

Can you try the hub and drive on another PC? This will narrow it down considerably.

 

The hub is working now but the only way to get the flash drive to work is to remove it from the hub and reinsert it. If I shut the computer down with the flash drive in the hub, it doesn't show it when the computer is restarted and the flash drive isn't lit as well which means it isn't working.

 

delete

 

Perhaps the cmos is not recognizing the hub and there by not seeing the flash drive. If you are trying to boot from the flash drive, try plugging it directly into the usb port and see what happens.

 

Now some of the drives aren't even being recognized after plugging them in. I inserted a new 4 GB drive and it didn't even lite up. Now, some of my older ones do and some flicker. I wonder if my power supply is going bad? I changed USB ports for my hub (wasn't showing drive) after trying a USB port on the front of my computer. Now they are all working except for the new one, must be bad?

 

Did you try plugging the new drive directly in to a usb port by itself instead of the hub?

 

My wife's laptop recognizes it but not mine (on the new flash drive). I did try plugging it in the front of my computer but it still didn't work. BTW, the old hub works on her laptop as well.

 

I know this is going to sound redundant but did you try the usb ports in the back of the machine as well? The reason I ask is I had an Ipod once that would not be recognized by the front ports on my computer, but it worked fine when I plugged it in on a back port it worked. Still have not solved that riddle.

 

Is the hub powered by the computer...?

Or perhaps on start up the O.S is only recognizing and powering the hub, therefore it doesnt recognize the fact that there is a usb device, until the the operating system see's it..in other words after you have re-inserted the flash drive and the O.S goes a little something like - Oh look here, a device is in there now.. I better do my job and give this usb port some power.

You might try an alternative to shutting down your p.c as normal perhaps try a suspend or hibernate to work around this problem, instead of logging out and shutting down... if that is an option.

also check to see in the bios ( if this feature is supported ) "Boot from usb device" is enabled, this may potentialy help - part of the trouble shooting stuff..

lastly.. if there is still no joy.
Try checking the irq, of the usb flash drive, after a succesful initialization - in other words after it is detected... this prob isnt a factor, but just to be sure, you might try assigning an alternative irq for the usb flash drive, dont use the one which windows has assigned / listed - you can go through the device manager to check and alter this.

hope this helps in some way, g.luck

 

I haven't tried the back, I'll check it out. The hub while having it's own power is plugged into the back though.

 

Not quite sure of doing what you suggested, I can screw up a ball bearing. The hub does have it's own power though.