Help with Flash drive problems.

[idmastin]

Hello,
I am an IT guy for a school. All the computers won't read flash drives. The drive doesn't show up anywhere that I can find. Including disk management. The computers are all running xp.

 

[phil22]

If they are school computers, accessing external storage devices may have been disabled deliberately to prevent unauthorised file transfers and virus-infection.
My college computers are like that. USB storage devices aren't recognised, and floppy drives are physically locked.
None of the computers have a CD burner.

The fact that all the computers won't read such devices means it's more likely to be an intentional restriction than a Windows or hardware fault.

The restriction can be set by using the "Group Policy Editor" in Windows XP Professional, or by a registry edit in other versions, the details of which I do not know.