USB gone awry

[CeaSaR]

My son's computer has suddenly started saying that his MP3 player is unformatted.
I have checked the player on my other systems and am able to browse folders and
files. As a double check, I inserted my 8G stick and it says the same thing. It does
recognize other USB devices, but "drives" are now a problem.

His system is XP Pro and we do not have Admin rights because it is a school computer.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
CeaSaR

[CeaSaR]

Anyone have any ideas?


Still looking for help,
CeaSaR

[SETEC_Astronomy]

I've not run across an issue like this in my dealings with computers so I did some Googling to see what I could come up with. These results http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=xp ... tted+error seem to suggest that what you're experiencing is not an isolated incident. Unfortunately no one seems to have a fix though. One person did report having success performing a system restore but I don't recommend attempting it, I have a bad history with system restore and there's a lot at risk in your case. Plus I don't think you can restore a system from an unprivileged account. If you're really desperate you can try gaining Admin/Root access with the use of tools like http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/ but it's risky and has the potential to upset the school a bit should they find out or something happen.

[CeaSaR]

We can restore to original config anytime with the restore disk - reformats and reloads all.
It's the info already stored on there that bugs us as he was using a USB key to transfer
things till it came up "Unformatted" one day. I guess I will either put it on the network or
have him burn some DVD's and go for broke.

Thanks,
CeaSaR

[SETEC_Astronomy]

I think DVD+/-R's or an over the network transfer is the way to go. I'm sure there has to be a solution but it might not be worth your time or loss of hair to find it.

[CeaSaR]

I'm sure there has to be a solution but it might not be worth your time or loss of hair to find it.

Absolutely! It will be easy enough to fix once he gets his info off of the HDD. Thankfully he has learned his
lesson with the last school computer and saved all the install files for his "add on" programs and can reload
them without having to go find them again.

Seems like a good time to set up the network for his music computer. That has plenty of room.

Thanks,
CeaSaR