USB Storage Devices are No Longer Accessible

[billstodd1]

A week ago I experienced a problem with my external USB media storage devices where I suddenly could no longer access through Windows. (Other USB connected devices such as my Epson printer and Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse are not affected). I have a Western Digital 160 gig external 2.0 USB hard drive, 256K Scan Disk memory stick, and a 128K digital memory card (with a USB 1.0 reader) that are all affected by whatever change occurred. The problem seems to affect only my USB storage devices, both USB 1.0 & 2.0. When I attempt to access any of the devices I always get the same message: “Drive is not accessible. Access is denied.”

In an attempt to identify specifically where the problem lies, I have done the following:

- Attempted a number of SYSTEM RESTORE’s where I always receive the same notice “Changes made to these drives cannot be reversed because the drive was either excluded from System Restore monitoring, or was turned off or removed”. (Definitely not the case!)

- When attempting to access any of these drives through either “My Computer” or “Windows Explore,” it always results in the same message: “Drive is not accessible. Access is denied.”

- I experience NO problem accessing any of these drives and their contents in Safe Mode.

- When I hook these affected devices to other computers running Windows XP, I experience no problems accessing them or their media.

- I uninstalled and reinstalled my USB drivers.

- I uninstalled and reinstalled each of these devices.

- I have checked my system a number of times for viruses, spyware and adware, using Norton’s Antivirus 2004, Adware v6.0 and Spyware Doctor v2.0.

- When checking the Disk Management feature in Windows I get a status for these devices as either “Healthy” or “Healthy (Active).”

- The drive properties for each of these devices reveals the same status: Used Space, Free Space and Capacity are all noted as “0 bytes 0 bytes.”

- I have no problems with either of my two installed hard drives … just the external storage devices off a USB port or one of my USB hubs are affected.

My operating system is Windows XP with SP-1. The motherboard installed in my system is an ASUS A7V333 with 768 meg of DDR 2100 RAM. I have run out of ideas as to what I should try next. Any thoughts or suggestions as to what I might consider would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.