Help, lost my j: removable storage

Hip, ? for you.

I seem to have lost my J: device removable storage. I didn't take it out, but for some reason it's not being recognized by my computer. It's a small port where I stick my camera card. Is there any way to get it back. I've tried system restore to no avail. I remember this happened before and then it came back as N: . WEIRD!

No ? by anything either

Have you tried this as I suggested over on the 40LBhead guestbook, that's the first thing to try.

You can try this first though..... go to start>control panel>system>hardware>device manager> See if there are any devices with question marks, if there are they will be very evident. Right click the device with the question mark and select uninstall then restart your computer.

Nevermind I see you tried it, is it listed at all under device manager. Should be under storage devices or removable storage devices or something similar. Look under USB devices as well. Just to confirm it's not listed under "My Computer" at all?

If you find it, right click and uninstall it then restart.

If you can't find it at all most likely you either have a faulty connection or faulty device. In that case you'll need to open the case and follow the wires from the device to the motherboard. It will be about 5 or 6 wires in total going to a female plug. The motherboard connector will have about 6-8 male connectors. It could also possibly have seperate wires running to the male connector on the motherboard, if so make note of which ones you disconnect from where, they will be marked on each individual end. Disconnect them then reconnect. You can also try "jiggling" them. Make sure you have disconnected the power and touch a metal part of the case to discharge any static electricity before touching anything.

It's not very common to just lose a device because of bad connection but it can happen.

Hip, I solved my problem the old fashioned way. I unplugged my computer and then plugged it back in. It read everything that I lost as new hardware. I have to give myself a giant DOY! on that one. Thanks for the help.

8) That's kind of odd though, restarting it should have the same affect. Probably has constant power going to the USB drive which was uninterruptible unless you disconnected the power or power supply.

Anyhow glad to hear you figured it out, I was going to suggest an axe next. I had one of those drives that was brand new out of the box, kept disconnecting and reconnecting. Even an identical replacement one did the same thing.... I even went as far as updating the BIOS on the motherboard which isn't something taken lightly and it still didn't work. I'll have to remember that for future reference.

BTW, that pop-up you were getting was for a PM I sent you via this board, wasn't a regular pop-up if you were wondering.