Problem with an usb drive

[dig deep]

Had it for a few years connected using usb
It lost it drive letter today so I can´t access it.
Using Win Optimizer, it is the only program that shows the drive. It can test it and all is good
Can´t get it to work elsewhere, using win10 pro and the drive is an bigger on 1TB Lots of music on it
Win can´t see it and Win Commander show no info what so ever
Think I must revive it, any good ideas ?

 

[PaulR]

Chkdsk is always my first port of call.

 

[Channel Hopper]

What make is it ? The manufactuer may have a special tool for it.

 

[Lazarus]

Do you have access to a device running a major Linux distro?

The Disks (sic) utility has never yet let me down in giving a goosed USB Drive another life.

 

[jeallen01]

Lost drive letters are quite common - particularly where you have since connected another drive and it gets allocated the same drive letter - and the issue totally confuses many people (except those who have often "been there, found the solution! ).

Open File Explorer and then Right Click on Computer/My Computer/This PC (or whatever!) to display the menu and then select "Manage" to bring up the "Computer Management" screen

In the LH box, Click on "Disk Management" which will load up and show the currently connected disks and their allocated drive letters - and it's likely that the USB won't have one, or else it will show the same drive letter as one of the other disks. In case of any confusion, the drive capacity should identify it because it will be very small (by modern standards!).

In the LH box for that drive, Right click to bring up the menu, and then Click on "Change Drive Letter and Paths..). and then change the drive letter to one of the offered selection - which will not include the currently-allocated letters for any other drive.

Complete the action and then close Disk Management and, hopefully, you will now see the old drive with its new drive letter as just allocated!

 

[Terryl]

Or you can try unplugging it then shut the computer down, then start it back up without the drive connected, then plug the drive back in at a different USB port and see what happens.

Do you see it in the hardware management under disk drives??

 

[dig deep]

Thank´s for all help. I did it just using Win and disk management, just like jeallen01 suggested
and it worked fine,

 

[Topper]

Yes I have a couple of external drives I have to allocate the drive letter to, using disk management everytime I connect them to my lappie, disconnecting again makes them lose that allocation. It is a known after effect of a particular type of cyber attack, but you have to be a registry expert to know which particular entry has been changed in the registry to sort it permanently. This is one of the reasons I hate the small amounts of unallocated space on a drives being created when partitioning as anything could hide in there and never be found by a decent AV

 

[jeallen01]

@Topper

Info on that cyber attack would be most useful if you can provide any.

 

[Topper]

@Topper

Info on that cyber attack would be most useful if you can provide any.

Wish I could but I have no knowledge of exactly what I was hit with only a good idea what the results were, i.e. my BT was account hacked, my router hacked my BT Tv subscription being shared with others in Mumbai, all files on my hard drives being wiped, my google account compromised. The source is unknown except it was an Eastern European who hacked my Instagram account as I saw his name and did a screenshot before my phone was wiped. The exploit on the drives is designed to be a nuisance more than anything but has something to do with the drives section of the registry which blocks the primary handshake that allocates the next drive letter. It is not possible to find out exactly as part of the registry is converted to hex in Win 10 so is impossible to read and too laborious to convert each entry.

 

[jeallen01]

@Topper

Very Nasty - Sympathy!