Electronics

[Caffeina]

Maybe this?

www.howtogeek.com/howto/22251/find-your-missing-usb-drive-in-windows-7-vista

[sciencegeek_1]

This is probably going to sound old fashioned...

My laptop is 4 years old, and though it has USB ports for a flashdrive, it also has a cd/dvd drive. Does yours? You can save to a disk and store it away from the computer, it's as good a back up as a flash drive.

[sciencegeek_1]

Another thought. If your computer has a port for a sd card (like you'd use to transfer pictures from a camera) you could save to an sd card.

If I were in your shoes, I'd go to the store and buy a new thumb drive, an sd card, and some writeable disks. Something should work. Anything as long as you can back up the document saved on your computer.

[sciencegeek_1]

And yet another thought. Attach the document to an email to yourself. That email is stored on your internet provider's site, so you can access it from any computer, anywhere. It's a good temporary solution.

[focksie]

On 9/20/2014 Caffeina said:

Maybe this?

www.howtogeek.com/howto/22251/find-your-missing-usb-drive-in-windows-7-vista

These sound like good instructions Caffeina but I got stuck on this part:

"You should be able to determine which one is the drive you’re trying to access by its size and format type. Here we’re trying to find a 4GB thumb drive. Right-click on the drive and select Change Drive Letter and Paths."

I have no idea from the illustration how they identified the 4GB thumb drive. I don't see any indication of that. My device is a 1GB thumb drive and as well, there is no indication on the screen which device that is so that I can go ahead and change the drive letter.

[focksie]

Good ideas sciencegeek. I don't know anything about sd card technology, but my computer has a CD drive. I assume backing up the document happens in the same way my computer backs up files every week ???

Tomorrow I'll buy another couple of flash drives. I hope they work.

[sciencegeek_1]

On 9/20/2014 focksie said:

Good ideas sciencegeek. I don't know anything about sd card technology, but my computer has a CD drive. I assume backing up the document happens in the same way my computer backs up files every week ???

Tomorrow I'll buy another couple of flash drives. I hope they work.

Your computer has a name for your CD drive. Since your flash drive was drive E, I'm guessing that either drive C or drive D would be your cd drive. You save to it the same way you do to a flash drive. Put the disk in and do a "save as" to the correct drive.

I hope your USB ports work with a new thumb drive. Good luck!

[Caffeina]

On 9/20/2014 focksie said:

On 9/20/2014 Caffeina said:

Maybe this?

www.howtogeek.com/howto/22251/find-your-missing-usb-drive-in-windows-7-vista

These sound like good instructions Caffeina but I got stuck on this part:

"You should be able to determine which one is the drive you’re trying to access by its size and format type. Here we’re trying to find a 4GB thumb drive. Right-click on the drive and select Change Drive Letter and Paths."

I have no idea from the illustration how they identified the 4GB thumb drive. I don't see any indication of that. My device is a 1GB thumb drive and as well, there is no indication on the screen which device that is so that I can go ahead and change the drive letter.

You need to slide the bar at the bottom to bring the other columns into view, so you can see the column labeled Capacity. It probably shows a capacity slightly less than what is printed on the flash drive, maybe 900-some MB. This short video shows the procedure. The guy has an accent but the video seems easy to follow. He slides the bar over at about the 1:36 mark.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXiYML2OPmw

[focksie]

Oh now I see Caffeina -- it's a horizontal scroll in the middle of the screen. You can see the size if you scroll right. I have 4 computer icons in the top box but unfortunately, the first two icons have no drive letter at all next to them, the 3rd icon has (C and the 4th icon has (D, so I'm not touching the 3rd and 4th. The first icon, when I scroll to the right, shows a size of 1.46 GB which is the closest equivalent to my 1 GB flash drive. But when I right-click on that icon like the instructions say to do, the only thing that comes up is a "Help" menu and nothing else, and that's because there's no letter listed next to that icon to be changed!

I knew there was a reason I was the last hold-out in my family to get a computer. It's so bewildering and frustrating to me when something goes wrong.

sciencegeek - Yes, my D: drive holds the CD. That's where my files are backed up weekly.

[Lynnj]

Its been a while since I've used a PC, I am on Mac now. But....if i remember correctly, an E drive is usually a CD/DVD drive. You say you can see a C and D drive when you plug in the flash to the USB. So click on those drives to see what they show, of course with your flash plugged in.