Windows technical S. answered 09/14/15
Question A.
asked 11/06/14The flash drive that came with a windows 8 computer will not show up on the windows 7 computer. Why?
Flash drive wont show up on windows 7 computer
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Phil C. answered 12/23/14
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Computer and Application Instructor
Check in the properties as to whether it is exfat, fat32, or NTFS.
If it is NTFS and your computer is Fat32 they will not be able to communicate.
Rodney B. answered 12/08/14
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Modern Computer Use, Office Applications and Programming
The most likely cause of this problem is that the flash drive may require a driver which you do not have installed on teh windows 7 machine. It is even possible that the flash drive maker does not have a windows 7 version of the driver available.
I would recommend going to the manufacturers web site and looking to see if they have a driver available for download for windows 7 or an earlier version.
Another potential problem is that the USB ports on the windows 7 box are either not enabled or are not the correct USB version.
You may wish to open device manager in windows 7 prior to plugging in the device, then plug the device in and observe if it is recognized in any way in device manager - typically the machine will emit some sound and you will see a change in the devices list shortly after plugging in a USB device. If you don't observe any change, then the port is either disabled or does not recognize the device.
A good thing to try at that point is to plug the device into another machine running anything other than windows 8 - if it works there, then the problem lies in the specific windows 7 machine.
Lastly, and this one will sound like it wouldn't have any impact - but it can... Plug the device into a USB extension cord first, then plug that into the computer. I don't know why this has an effect, but I have seen it work on too many occasions to question it further.
Because it's Windows.....get a Mac -:)
Jim
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