[toreddie]

I've spent several hours attempting to get Vista (Ultimate) to recognize my Sandisk Cruzer (2Gb, U3, SDCZ6-2048, BE0608A1B). The flash drive works fine on my XP Pro notebook and worked on my Vista desktop before I upgraded to Vista.

This is the message I get after plugging the drive in (the light comes on for 3-4 seconds):
"USB devise not recognized. One of the USB devises attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it. For assistance in solving this problem, click this message".

When I click the message I get a new window up which shows a list of USB Root Hub (8 ports), and one is listed as "Unknown USB devise".

I contacted Sandisk tech support three times and got three different answers:
1) Use the U3 uninstall tool from their website to uninstall and reformat the flash drive. I did that, but Vista still does not recognize the drive.
2) You are out of luck. Buy a new flash drive. The version I have (v 2.18) supposedly would NEVER work with Vista regardless of uninstalling and reformatting.
3) It is a driver issue. I was told to search for a Vista driver that would enable Vista to recognize my flash drive. After 2 hrs searching, I can't find anything.

I understand that the U3 software may not be compatible with Vista, but a formatted flash drive should not be a problem. It's a "dumb" drive. Or, so I thought.

Please, anyone, help me with a solution soon. I've got presentations I need off of the Vista machine.

toreddie

[Rollin' Rog]

Is this what you have?

http://www.radioshack.com/sm-sandisk...i-2634491.html

I have what I believe is this model; plug it in and you should get a prompt to use "ready boost" on it.

It also says that on the drive case.

In fact, as a check on your issue, I just decided to enable readyboost on it -- and sheesh, it DOES make a difference!

[toreddie]

Sorry, not the same. Mine is not "readyboost" capable.

[Rollin' Rog]

Ok, well, I haven't tested this on Vista, but you might want to try it. Modify some of the instructions to fit Vista.

In this case you are looking to remove "ghost" entries both under the Device Manager "Disk" drives and "USB" trees.

Here are the basic directions:

USB CLEANUP

First set a System Restore point and test it: start > run: msconfig > Launch System Restore.

The standard approach to these problems is to remove all the USB devices in the Device Manager and let Windows reinstall them. But there is a special technique to it.

I am uploading a registry patch you will need to download, unzip and run. Confirm the merge to the registry.

http://forums.techguy.org/attachment.../usbghosts.zip

It is the patch described in JohnWill's note here:

http://forums.techguy.org/hardware/4...ml#post3435808

Once you have installed the patch, follow the rest of his instructions.

Note: in some cases Windows does not have the proper install path for the information files required. If the New Hardware Wizard prompts you for an install location, point it to:

c:\windows\INF

This is a hidden directory, so you will need to have "show Hidden Files" enabled in Folder Options > View to see it.