Flash drive refers to a location that is unavailable It could be on a hard drive

Hello,

My friend has thumb drive problems.
The computer is an Asus laptop model K501J
The OS is Windows Vista Home Premium Version 6.0.6001 Service Pack 1 Build 6001
It's an x64 based PC, but the driver and utility disk says it supports Vista 32 bit only.

Any usb thumb drive connected to this computer (especial interest in one he
had been using previously) doesn't work.
The drives are good as they work on my (openSuse 11.1) tablet w/o trouble;
choosing "Properties" when I right-click on the volume in Disk Management works, and
the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the notification area works.

The account is an administrator account.
I have turned off User Account Control and rebooted afterwards.
I have searched for an updated driver (it says the latest one has been installed).
I have uninstalled and reinstalled the driver.

I have attempted to assign a drive letter by right-clicking on the volume in disk management
and selecting "Change Drive Letter and Paths..." from the pop-up menu and then clicking the
"Add" button below the blank field for drive letters.

When I do, I get a message:
"
D:\ refers to a location that is unavailable. It could be on a hard drive on this computer, or on
a network. Check to make sure that the disk is properly inserted, or that you are connected to
the Internet or your network, and then try again. If it still cannot be located, the information
might have been moved to a different location.
"

I have tried it with drive letters other than "D."
As the drives don't get assigned a letter, I don't get to a stage where I can see a
"Security" tab when I right-click on the volume and choose "Properties."

Any ideas?

Thanks for taking the time to read these words.

John Banister