Windows 10: USB drive

I teach and all my files have been on my USB for the past two years. Suddenly yesterday, the usb drive Lexar stopped "lighting up" - so it is not being recognized by my PC. Windows 10.How can I - if ever - get the files on the Thumb drive? Thank you in advance for your help.

:)

 

help. USB drive isn't assigned a drive letter.

Any usb flash drive I plug into my computer isn't assigned a drive letter. The physical drive shows in the "safely remove hardware" but it doesnt show up in disk management. I have tried to populate the volume thru the safely remove hardware properties window and it does pop up in the list but it doesn't stay there. This isn't a format or assign a letter problem. It's more complicated then that. Maybe one of the services needed for usb drive management was disabled? Suggestions needed. btw external usb harddrives work fine.

 

Installing windows off of a USB stick

Step By Step from vista:
From admin cmd prompt

1. diskpart
1a. list disk
2. select disk 1 (replace 1 with your usb drive)
3. clean
4. create partition primary
5. select partition 1 (replace 1 with your usb drive)
6. active
7. format fs=fat32
8. assign
9. exit

Copy Windows Vista's DVD ROM content to the Flash Drive

xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\ (d being your vista cd and e being your usb stick)

And that's it, boot off your usb disk

 

USB boot for bios update

Did the first step. It already doesn't work. Note the capacities and drive letters M:/N: The HP utility is about to format my raid-1 volume containing my 2 750gb drives. It thinks it's the usb stick. I can not select any other drives in the HP utility. My 512mb usb stick is U:.

Any other suggestions?