The flash drive that came with a windows 8 computer will not show up on the windows 7 computer. Why?

Question

Flash drive wont show up on windows 7 computer

Answer 1

That's because it was designed mainly for Windows 8. It depends on the type of flash drive you have; exfat, fat32, or NTFS. Once you determine that you can find the right solution.

Answer 2

Call @ 1-855-446-0916 for windows technical support

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

Because it's Windows.....get a Mac -:)

 

Jim