USB Drive

I was backing up my files today to an external hard drive. I also have a USB Flash Drive that I wanted to copy the files on it over to the external drive. When I insert the USB Flash Drive it shows installed correctly and shows up in my "devices and printers" folder but it does not open up to show any files. If I right click it to "browse files" it shows "removable disk I" but if I click removable disk I in My Computer it says to insert a disk. If I right click to "open as portable device" it is blank.

Did I do something wrong at the time I thought I was copying files onto it or am I doing something wrong now?

No, you didn't do anything wrong.
It's supposed to just detect so you can see it in Windows Explorer.

First thing to do is wait a while. Sometimes antivirus won't let you access a removable disk until it scans it thoroughly. This is almost instantaneous with a small flash drive, but a larger spinning drive will take longer, especially if it's already full of files.

If it still won't detect, try a different USB port.
If that doesn't work, try rebooting the computer, wait until the boot is finished (hard drive light settles down), and try plugging in the USB drive again.

If it still doesn't detect, try running diskmgmt.msc from Start\Run (XP) or the Start Search (Win7) as described on one of these websites:

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/external-drive-not-recognized-this-is-how-to-fix-it-in-windows/

https://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/external-hard-drive-not-recognized/

Hi Jenny. Thanks for the info. Waiting didn't accomplish anything. Different ports didn't either except that the other ports I tried it in are USB 2 and this is a USB 3 so they did inform me that the device would work faster in a USB 3 (the original port I tried it in).

I did do diskmgmt.msc to take a look and the drive was not listed there. When I looked at your first link I got some message about fraud. I looked at the second link and looked at the info regarding the drive not being listed. I didn't do anything with the info though. I still need to try a reboot to see if that helps or not, then I'll go from there. Not sure if I'll be able to follow all of it or not.

Here's a link from howtogeek
https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/22251/find-your-missing-usb-drive-in-windows-7-vista/

Thanks Jenny. I never did get back to this yet.

Be sure to check the drive on a second computer if you haven't already (and if you have a second computer available).

Not showing up after a reboot. I don't really have another computer to try it in except the XP and I don't know if that's compatible or not. I didn't try any of the stuff in the links you provided yet.

Definitely try it on the XP... USB is universal across platforms.