"Please insert disk into removable drive" error with pen drives in Vista [duplicate]

Whenever I insert a pen drive, I am not able to open it.

Vista shows me this error:

Please insert disk into removable drive

I have tried changing the drive letter, but it didn't help.


Solution 1:

Can you access this drive from other machines?

If the answer is no - the drive is probably damaged, or it is one of the two items I have listed below.

If the answer is yes, Can you give model details and I can look in to it - it is possible the drive has "special" features which are not Vista compatible.

I have only seen this on two occasions:

  1. It was a generic USB stick and the memory was not integrated into the circuit, but was an extra module which was pushed into place, sometimes it came loose and squeezing the drive fixed it as it reconnected the parts

  2. The disk was completely (hardware) encrypted and required drivers installed in order to read from it