8gb Survivor, works in one laptop, not in another laptop

[tomwright]

I just got a new 8GB Survivor (standard blue-logo one). It works fine in one laptop but not another one.

 

It works on an HP ZD8000.

 

It does not work on a Lenovo T60.

 

Both are running winXP SP2 .

 

On the HP I plug in the drive and it is recognized and assigned a drive letter automatically.

 

On the Lenovo, I plug in the drive and the Lenovo knows it, recognizes a USB mass storage device, but does not assign a drive letter, so I can not access it.

 

However, both PC's recognize and assign a drive letter to my old 2GB Flash Voyager.

 

I tried reformatting the Survivor using the HP, (default FAT32), it still has the same problems with the Lenovo.

 

I am limited in what I do with the Lenovo as it is issued by my employer. I did check the divers and hardware settings and all is up to date so far as I can see.

 

I suspect the problem lies with the drive since the old drive works fine.

 

Any clues or should I just get it the Survivor swapped for a new one?

[Garvin]

It's likely the USB drivers on that T60 are immature, leading to problems with flash drives larger than 2GB. Lenova has a "System Update 3.10" utility dated 10/25/2007 that will hopefully address the issue by updating/patching everything that needs fixin. It can be found here:

 

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/product.do?subcategoryind=0&familyind=290543&brandind=10&doccategoryind=0&modelind=0&doctypeind=9&validate=true&partnumberind=0&sitestyle=lenovo&template=%2Fproductpage%2Flandingpages%2FproductPageLandingPage.vm&operatingsystemind=49979&machineind=0

[tomwright]

Garvin, Thanks, but I hesitate to use this. The T60 was issued by my employer and this update includes BIOS and other system critical updates. If I hose the laptop, it could pose problems. I can not jeopardize my job for this.

 

Do you or anyone else know what the drivers are, and the versions/dates etc? The drivers on the HP and the Lenovo are the same date and version numbers, except that the USB host controller drivers on the Lenovo are more recent, about 2 years newer. So they should work even better than the older ones on the HP.

 

If not the USB drivers, which drivers might be the problem?

[tomwright]

BINGO! I found the problem.

 

There seems to be an issue with one part of XP not knowing what another part of XP is doing.

 

While I had no flash drives plugged into the computer I had mapped a network drive at work to Drive F: .

 

Apparantly XP had used F: for one of the USB drives in the past.

 

So the next time I plugged in the Survivor, for some reason XP assigned it to Drive F:, even though it did not do that for the Voyager.

 

Yet in Windows Explorer, F: still showed as a network drive, and I could access network files using it.

 

So one part of XP thought the Survivor was assigned F:, yet did not display that in Windows Explorer, nor was it able to access it. F: was still showing a network connection and could only be used that way.

 

To fix this, While not connected to the LAN, I went to 'My Computer' on the Desktop display, right click,->manage->Disk Management, found that drive F: showing the Corsair drive, NOT THE NETWORK CONNECTION, right click on the Corsair drive and select 'Change Drive Letter and Paths' and changed the drive assignment from F: to G: .

 

I can now see the Corsair Survivor in Windows Explorer and use it, yet the original F: drive still shows the network connection. So now drives F: and G: show up, both are accessible.

 

So not drivers at all, but a weird screw up in XP.

 

Lesson: Use higher letter drives for you LAN drives or make sure they are all assigned before you plug in flash drives.

[Garvin]

Good catch (and good to know)!