I am looking for suggestions to fix usb drive.
The flash drive worked fine for months but failed to be recognized by either XP or Vista machines today.

A same pop up window states that "usb device is not recognized" and the drive is no longer visible in win explorer. (see attached screen captures of the messages). So I can't even attempt to format or repair it.

There was not anything different that I did with this drive. However I was able to pull out a 'ball' of dust from the drive when it first failed. Nothing changed after I got the dust out. So maybe there was a short circuit?

When I insert the drive half way the light begins to blink. If I then insert the drive completely, I get the above message (usb device is not recognized) and the light goes out.

Any thought?

I am prepared to crack open the case and perhaps rewire the circuit. Has anyone successfully tried that before?

Thank you in advance.

When you go into Device Manager and do view>show hidden devices, are there any usb devices listed as unknown or greyed out?

If so, try uninstalling them and rebooting. Then try your usb flash drive again.

I don't see anything... (included is my Device Manager with show-hidden-devices screenshot )

Um....it says Unknown Device right there. It's the one right in the middle.

AJ