I am using a 60 GB laptop hard drive in a USB case with my laptop on
XP SP2. If I start the computer with the USB hard drive attached, and
login into XP account, the USB drive will not be recognized (will not
appear at My Computer). However, the taskbar will show a connected USB
drive icon, and the Hardware Manager will show it as well.
If, however, I briefly remove and reconnect the hard drive it will detect it.
Same can be done if I briefly disconnect and reconnect on the Login in
to the account XP screen. Then, when the desktop appears, the USB hard
drive will be already recognized and I will have an external hard
drive icon in the My Computer.
I would like to know:
1) Do you know whether flash USB devices have the same behavior, and
if no, is this because of my driver for the external hard drive.
2) If this is a problem with XP, is there a way to "automate" the
disconnect--reconnect sequence right on login (perhaps as a task)
3) This could be a second answer, and it could be answered separately:

When the USB hard drive is being recognized there appears and Autoplay
box which scans the HD for files. I have autoplay for that HD to set
to Do Nothing. Is there a way to not show the Autoplay box, because I
have ~30k files and it takes about a minute to scan them all. I know
that this is not really bothering me, but still...

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Clarification of Question by eestudent-ga on 12 Jan 2006 13:51 PST

Found the answer to the second part -- Set Do Nothing for every media
type in the Autoplay bar.
Now, if I plug it into someone else's computer it will go thru
autoplay. Is there a setting like in desktop.ini to change the
setting?