[slipkid]

I gotta compaq presario 5w270 and just recently had the need to use the usb's for a flash drive and nuttin. The drive shows up in the tray and will let me shut it down but it doesn't show in windows explorer and devise manager has a yellow ecla. next to usb drive and another next to usb disk. The drive works fine in an xp machine. I tracked down the factory drivers for me but it will not install them. Is it something real simple I am missing ? I hope

any help Thanks in advance
I'm climbing out onto the edge of the building now

[DoubleHelix]

I assume this is a Windows 98 computer? If so, the flash drive manufacturer has to provide drivers for Windows 98 in order for there to be any chance it will work.

[ryanhe]

I see your OS is ME as seen in your specs. If so, and if I recall correctly, windows ME uses flash drives the same way that 2000 and XP do. If the OS is ME you shouldn't need a driver, if the OS is 98 or 98se go to (http://www.technical-assistance.co.uk/kb/usbmsd98.php) and download the drivers for your version (98fe or 98se) and follow the instructions.

[slipkid]

Firsy off thanks for the replys ! Now a little more info...it's a pny flash drive that had files off a xp drive. Well it has the mshta.exe on the xp drive and i am trying to copy files from my ME machine onto the flash drive and it did work now it wants to format it? I have been round and round with this and it appears that it's not necessarily a ME quirk but across tha board . Any clues ..

[SDFOX 7]

Is it possilbe that you originally formateed the USB drive as NTFS while running it in Windows XP? Sometimes flash drives need to be formatted before they can be used, and if you formatted it as NTFS while in XP this would be the answer to your problem.

Try formatting as FAT32 while in Windows XP, then copies the files to the flash device and then move the USB device over to the ME computer. Windows 95, 98 and ME can only recognize FAT drives.