Solved Flash Drive not seeing Files in Windows 11

bugspop1 · Feb 24, 2024

This is on my Asus Zenbook UX562UG_Q508UG 2-in-1 Laptop, Upgraded to Windows 11 Pro from Windows 10 Home
1tb WD Blue SN570 SSD, 8gb DDR4, 1920x1080p Touchscreen.

I recently found that a couple of my Flash Drives show up in Windows 11, but don't show any files on them.
Many of my other Flash Drives worked just fine, no problems with the USB Ports.
My Logitech Anywhere Mouse works in both USB Ports too.

The Flash Drives I'm having trouble with are a PNY 64gb, the other is a 2gb Kingston.
I have a 32gb PNY that is working just fine in Windows 11 and a Number of others including 16gb Lexar,
128gb SanDisk, and 2gb-4gb Kingston.

I have scanned these Flash Drives with Windows Defender, Malwarebytes and Norton's, No Viruses, Malware, etc....
I am able to Copy Files and Read Files I just copied on the PNY 64gb and the 2gb Kingston Flash Drives, Windows 11
just can't Read the Files that were already on these Flash Drives.
The PNY 64gb Flash Drive Shows up in File Explorer as HD_60GB (D:), it shows in Properties as HD_60GB and having
58.8GB with 58.2GB Free.

All of the Flash Drives work just fine on my Old Acer Aspire V5-573P-6896 Laptop with Windows 10 Home,
upgraded from Windows 8.
Intel i5 265gb, Crucial mSATA SSD, 500gb WD Slim, 12gb DDR3L, 1920x1080p Touchscreen.

Any help is appreciated.

glasskuter · Feb 24, 2024

bugspop1 said:
ust can't Read the Files that were already on these Flash Drives.

Welcome to the forum.
Right click on one of the drives in explorer, select properties. Under file system, how is it formatted?
Possibly the files somehow are flagged as hidden. Go to control panel>file explorer options>view tab
Tick the box "show hidden files folder,& drives" Apply-OK
Close and reopen file explorer to see if you see the files now.

bugspop1 · Feb 24, 2024

Thanks for the Welcome.

It's formatted in Fat32.
Pretty sure all of my Flash Drives are Formatted Fat32.
I already made sure the Show Hidden File Box is Checked earlier today.

Sorry, you had no way of knowing that.
I didn't post that info, forgot I had done it earlier.

I did just go thru those steps again, in case I missed something.
Still the Same Results, "This Folder is Empty".

antspants · Feb 24, 2024

Are you able to return the flash drives to the Acer Aspire that they can be read on and move the files from the folder they are in, to either a new folder or on to the root of the flash drive and check again?
Or are you able to select all files and copy them to a different flash drive using your Acer Aspire?

Worth a try if nothing else is working.

P.S. Welcome to the Eleven Forums, Bugspop

antspants · Feb 24, 2024

If that fails; You could also try copying the files to a folder on your Acer Aspire and zipping them to an archive. Copy the archive back onto the flash drive, take it to your PC and unzipping them there. I’d be interested to know if they show as a result. Strange idea but these are the things I would try if all else failed, mainly out of curiosity.
Whilst the files are on your Acer Aspire, double check the files aren’t marked as hidden or restricted somehow.

bugspop1 · Feb 24, 2024

Thanks or the welcome antspants.

I'm sure I can, actually all of the files came from the Acer Laptop.
It's an 8-9 year old Laptop that I started having trouble with the Monitor.
If I play around with it long enough, I can get the Monitor to work again.
I tried tearing it apart to see if I could figure out what was wrong with it or
replace the monitor, but the Case started crumbling, everywhere that there
was a Screw (when I say crumbling, I mean crumbling).
Anyway, a little Super Glue to fix the crumbing parts, I threw it back together
and never tried to fix it again!

I've had this Asus Laptop for a little over a year, but just recently started using it.
Before using it, I upgraded it from a 256gb WD SSD to a 1TB WD SN570 SSD.
I did upgrade the Asus Laptop from Win10 Home to Win11 Pro while I was at it.
Would have liked to Upgrade the RAM also, but it's soldered on the motherboard,
and had No Slot for an Upgrade, unlike my Acer (the Acer also had an Unused
mSATA Slot for an SSD Upgrade).
Guess the 4gb Video Card makes up for having soldered RAM.

Anyway, I'll try to try transferring the Files over to another drive.
Probably won't get around to it until tomorrow or Monday.
I do have a 2TB External Drive lying around, I could try and put the files on
that drive to transfer.
I think that drive is formatted to NTFS, but I could be wrong, it's been about
a year since I used it.

I've tried everything I could think of to get that Flash Drive to work.
Like I said, works fine on the Win10 Laptop and my other Flash Drives work
fine on this Laptop!
The weird thing is that I was able to Copy New Files from the Win11 Laptop onto
this Flash Drive in question, the Win11 Laptop could read those new files too!
But it still didn't see all those other files!

Thanks for the advice.

antspants · Feb 24, 2024

bugspop1 said:
Anyway, a little Super Glue to fix the crumbing parts

Ha! Legend.

bugspop1 said:
Thanks for the advice.

Too easy, I’ve tried stranger things and had results. I’ll watch this thread.

Cheers, Bugspop.

glasskuter · Feb 25, 2024

I don't know if where you live has it but we have a miracle product in the US called J B Weld. It was actually invented by a man about 25 miles from me. There's different versions of the product for different applications. I just use the one for metal since my husband always has it in his shop. He's an old carburetor man and has used it for 40 years to fix cracks in carburetors. I've fixed my share of cracked and deteriorating laptop cases with it and also different components that broke off in PCs like the little clip that holds in a cmos battery and the clips that connect a front cover on a PC.. ,Something else that works fantastic in a pinch and is a little easier to control is the acrylic women put on their nails. That stuff is HARD but not as hard as JB Weld.

I live in Texas. With a piece of baling wire, a roll of duck tape, and a tube of JB Weld we can fix anything. It's called southern engineering.

antspants · Feb 25, 2024

glasskuter said:
I don't know if where you live has it but we have a miracle product in the US called J B Weld. It was actually invented by a man about 25 miles from me. There's different versions of the product for different applications. I just use the one for metal since my husband always has it in his shop. He's an old carburetor man and has used it for 40 years to fix cracks in carburetors. I've fixed my share of cracked and deteriorating laptop cases with it and also different components that broke off in PCs like the little clip that holds in a cmos battery and the clips that connect a front cover on a PC.. ,Something else that works fantastic in a pinch and is a little easier to control is the acrylic women put on their nails. That stuff is HARD but not as hard as JB Weld.

I live in Texas. With a piece of baling wire, a roll of duck tape, and a tube of JB Weld we can fix anything. It's called southern engineering.

I’ve used it for lots of repairs, I have a few different types of JB Weld glues. very strong stuff. Sells in Australia in hardware stores, online, even supermarkets.

NavyLCDR · Feb 25, 2024

bugspop1 said:
All of the Flash Drives work just fine on my Old Acer Aspire V5-573P-6896 Laptop with Windows 10 Home,
upgraded from Windows 8.
Intel i5 265gb, Crucial mSATA SSD, 500gb WD Slim, 12gb DDR3L, 1920x1080p Touchscreen.

Any help is appreciated.

Just curious....have you thought about copying the files using the computer that works onto new flash drives?

antspants · Feb 25, 2024

antspants said:
Are you able to return the flash drives to the Acer Aspire that they can be read on and move the files from the folder they are in, to either a new folder or on to the root of the flash drive and check again?
Or are you able to select all files and copy them to a different flash drive using your Acer Aspire?

Worth a try if nothing else is working.

P.S. Welcome to the Eleven Forums, Bugspop

antspants said:
If that fails; You could also try copying the files to a folder on your Acer Aspire and zipping them to an archive. Copy the archive back onto the flash drive, take it to your PC and unzipping them there. I’d be interested to know if they show as a result. Strange idea but these are the things I would try if all else failed, mainly out of curiosity.
Whilst the files are on your Acer Aspire, double check the files aren’t marked as hidden or restricted somehow.

bugspop1 said:
Anyway, I'll try to try transferring the Files over to another drive.
Probably won't get around to it until tomorrow or Monday.

bugspop1 · Feb 25, 2024

I really got my Flash Drives out to look for the Windows 7 Home ISO.
I have a friend that want's that ISO without any Service Packs and he
can't seem to find it anywhere.
I plugged the Flash Drives in to my Asus Laptop w/Windows 11 Pro
and like I said above, a couple didn't work (showed nothing on them).
I was sure that ALL of my Flash Drives had something on them, I'm a
collector of junk (old computer programs, apps, documents and Pics).

I have the Windows 7 Pro 64bit Disc and I also have a Windows 7
Home 64bit Recovery Disc, I've have offered both to him.
But I've been unable to find the Windows 7 Home ISO that I thought
I had on the Flash Drives.

Yes, I could Copy the Files onto a New Flash Drive, but I really don't
want to go out and buy another Flash Drive.
I have that 2TB External WD Hard Drive and I can probably copy them
from my Acer Win10 Laptop to the Hard Drive and then onto my Asus
Win11 Laptop.

Okay, funny thing!
Got my Acer Win10 Laptop fired back up today (only took half an hour:
plugged in the Flash Drive and there was nothing on it, it was there yesterday?
I did Re-Format the Flash Drive and then copied all the files back to the Flash
Drive and to the 2TB External WD Hard Drive.
Pretty sure I'm not going to be trusting that Flash Drive, even though it's
had very little use.

When I plugged in the Flash Drive to my Asus Win11 Laptop, all the Files
I had just copied from Acer Win10 Laptop were there, on the Flash Drive.
I then plugged the 2TB External WD Hard Drive and the files were on that drive too.
I have all the Files I wanted copied to my Asus Win11 Laptop now.

antspants · Feb 25, 2024

bugspop1 said:
have all the Files I wanted copied to my Asus Win11 Laptop now.

bugspop1 · Feb 25, 2024

I think I can finally retire my Acer Laptop.
I will keep it for parts as my wife has an Identical Laptop.
Hers didn't get nearly the workout mine got, so it's still
in decent shape.

Glasskuter
I forgot to answer your question about JB Weld.
Yes, I have used it before, but the Bottom Half of the
Acer Laptop Case was made of Plastic.
The Laptop looked and felt like metal, but I'm here
to tell you, it was plastic!

I wasn't sure how well JB Weld would work with
Plastic, so I used Gorilla Super Glue.
The Hinges on the Monitor were also crumbling,
they're Glued back together too!