How to Re-Mount a USB Drive in Windows Without Rebooting
I have a really crappy Kingwin USB external drive enclosure.
It doesn’t usually work.
When it does work, I am able to connect it to my XP computer exactly once. That’s right – after choosing to “Safely remove hardware” from the computer, when I reconnect the drive it isn’t recognized by Windows until I reboot the whole system.
What a pain the butt, right?
Fortunately, I was able to discover a workaround for this issue. In short, I use the device manage to disable then re-enable the “USB Mass Storage Device.” After doing so, my computer will find and recognize the drive without having to reboot Windows.
Here’s how you do it.
- Open the device manager. You can find this by clicking Start->Control Panel. In the Control Panel, choose “System.” From System, choose the “Hardware” tab. There you will see a button labeled “Device Manager.” Click it.
(Or, if you don’t want to go through all the clickity-clack all over the place, just go to Start->Run and type “devmgmt.msc.” This should launch device manager.)
- Under “Universal Serial Bus Controllers,” look for an entry called “USB Mass Storage Device.” Right click on this entry and choose “Disable.”
- The Window will refresh, now, right-click on the same entry and choose “Enable.”
- Turn on or connect your USB Drive. Windows should now recognize it.
I hope this works for you and saves you from having to reboot every time you remove your external USB drive from the system.
March 7th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
[...] This should save you a lot of clicking around, particularly if you have to access the device manager frequently. (As I do, because my external USB drive doesn’t show up unless I disable then re-enable the USB Mass Storage Dev….) [...]
March 7th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
[...] something else I’ve discovered about this Kingwin USB drive – when it does work, you can only connect it to your computer once before having to reboot. ONCE. Fortunately, I found a work-around for that, too. Tags: BJK-35USBI, external hard [...]
January 21st, 2011 at 11:15 pm
this method asked for reboot after enabling the device
October 14th, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Anyone know of a registry hack/ command line to do that with a simple double click? It happens to me ALL THE TIME and a simple “disable/refresh/enable” from the command line would sure help instead of having to run around with the louse all the time.
October 16th, 2011 at 1:43 pm
Found the registry hack…
Copy the lines between [start] and [end] into a new text file and save as DisablelUSB.reg and EnableUSB.reg
Disable:
[start]
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR]
“Start”=dword:00000004
[end]
Enable:
[start]
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR]
“Start”=dword:00000003
[end]
Double-click DisableUSB.reg, wait a few seconds, then EnableUSB.reg. I’ve used it a couple of times, seems to work fine so far :)