[Android General] Qui Peccavit:
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Phone not being recognized in Windows Explorer

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Before embarking on the journey of flashing one's phone, it is usually a good idea to make sure that the little fools' brick is properly recognized by the computer, because without a stable and reliable connection to the PC, pushing an alternative firmware to the phone can be hazardous or result in an unforeseen outcome. It is also practical to be able to copy files to the phone's microSD card before booting into 'Recovery Mode', for instance. Therefore, this tutorial aims to 'foster a better understanding' between the phone and the computer.

Prerequisite

A good, high quality USB-C to USB-A bi-directional cable for data transmission (not just for charging) is indispensable, one that adheres to the USB 3.1 Gen. 2 or a later specification. As a note of orientation: a good cable, especially a Thunderbolt 3 (USB 4) one, costs $30, not $3 like the Chinese garbage on eBay.

Once you tested and verified that your data cables work flawlessly, here are a couple different approaches that can be taken to fix the problem of connected devices not appearing in Windows Explorer. For the duration of your tests, you may want to switch off your security software (anti-virus and firewall et al) and log into your PC with an administrator account.

[1] ANDROID & PHONE DRIVER INSTALLATION

a.) Install the general drivers for Android devices, Android Debug Bridge (ADB)

Setup the Android and Google drivers for the computer and the particular phone (Samsung or whatever the brand is), oldest first, newest last, on the PC. It might be a good idea to install Google's entire Android Development Kit (Android Studio), which comes with the latest drivers and lots of other stuff included. The ADK has nothing to do with seeing the phone in Windows Explorer, but it allows system relevant operations that cannot be done on the (non-rooted) phone itself, such as uninstalling apps that Android only allows to disable or the reverse-engineering of apps, for instance.

b.) Install Drivers for the Phone's various USB Modes.

In the phone's dialer, enter *#7284# or *#0808#. Select the first mode from the menu and then connect the USB cable to the PC. If this leads to drivers being installed, wait for their setup to finish, disconnect the phone, choose the next mode from *#0808*, wash rinse and repeat. After having tried the last mode from the menu, set the phone's USB mode back to 'MTP + ADB'.

c.) In case any drivers were installed during the process, reboot the PC.

[2] WINDOWS DRIVERS AND REGISTRY

Most of the steps outlined in this section require administrator privileges, so you want to log into an administrator account on the PC.

a.) Troubleshooting the Issue of Windows not recognizing the Phone.

Press [Windows]+[R] and enter «Troubleshooter» (without quotes) into the Control Panel's search box, subsequently clicking on «Troubleshooting».

b.) Reinstalling Device Drivers.

In case there are any devices listed with a yellow triangle/exclamation mark in the Windows Device Manager, see if there might be a driver problem:

Press [Windows]+[R] and enter «Control» (without quotes). In the Control Panel, click on 'System' - 'Device Manager'. You also get there by right-clicking the Windows icon in the task bar and selecting 'Device Manager'. Expand the branches under 'Computer', 'Cameras & Scanners', 'DVD' and 'Disk Drives', 'IDE/ATAPI Controllers', etc., to look for yellow triangles. Right-click on each respective device to see its 'Properties'. Click on 'Update Driver' to see if there are any newer ones; if not, click on 'uninstall', but do not delete the driver files from the hard disk. Repeat the procedure for every device that is marked as having problems in the Device Manager.

c.) Reinstall Windows' IDE/ATAPI Drivers.

This is for disk drives, but depending on the phone model, it might be interpreted as an external USB drive by Windows. Therefore, just in case:

Still in the Device Manager, under the 'View' menu tab, 'Show hidden Devices'. Expand 'IDE/ATAPI Controllers', right-click 'ATA Channel 0' - 'uninstall'. Subsequently, do the same for 'ATA Channel 1', 'Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller' and other entries that might be there, but do not delete the driver files.

If you do this, you must reboot the PC so that the drivers get re-installed.

d.) Repair corrupted or missing Entries in the Windows Registry.

Press [Windows]+[R] and enter «RegEdit» (without quotes). Expand what looks like folders in the left pane (called 'Keys' in the Windows Registry) and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}. The easiest way to do this consists in going down the tree until ...\Class and pressing [Ctrl]+[F] to paste the key 4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318 into the search field. If they exist in the right pane, right-click and delete 'UpperFilters' and 'LowerFilters'.

Subsequently, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi and right-click the 'atapi' key to create a new key called 'Controller0'. Now right-click the 'Controller0' key and create a new DWORD(32-bit) value called 'EnumDevice1'. Double- or right-click 'EnumDevice1' to modify its value to «1» (without the quotes).

e.) Prepare Mapping the Phone as a Network Drive via WebDAV.

The following modification may become necessary if you decide to go the route of WebDAV to mount the phone as a network drive:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WebClient\Parameters => "BasicAuthLevel"=dword:00000002 (i.e. change the value to 2).

f.) Reboot the computer.

[3] THE MOBILE PHONE IN THE WINDOWS DEVICE MANAGER

Not all entries will read 'Samsung' (or another manufacturer's name, respectively), so look for related terms, too, such as 'ADB Interface', 'MTP USB Device', 'PMHome' and similar nomenclature.

a.) Checking for Entries that might cause Conflicts in the Device Manager.

Press [Windows]+[R] and enter «Control» (without quotes). In the Control Panel, click on 'System' - 'Device Manager'. You also get there by right-clicking the Windows icon in the task bar and selecting 'Device Manager'. Under the 'View' menu tab, 'Show hidden Devices'. The entries for mobile phones can usually be found under the following headings, but feel free to expand all branches in order to not miss any:

- Modems

- Network Adapters (if there is more than one with the same name, delete the duplicates)

- Other Devices => ADB Interface

- Portable Devices => MTP USB Device, PMHome

- Ports (COM & LTP)

- Samsung Android Phone (delete duplicate entries with the same name)

- Scanners & Cameras

- Universal Serial Bus Controllers

b.) Register the Modifications.

If you delete any duplicate entries, update or uninstall drivers (without deleting the driver files) or made other changes in the Windows Device Manager, reboot the PC.

[4] MEDIA PLAYER NETWORK SHARING & STREAMING

Enabling Media Streaming should not be necessary under normal circumstances, but there have been cases where doing so solved the problem of the phone not showing up in Windows' File Explorer.

a.) Enable Windows Search and Media Player Network Sharing

Hold [Windows]+[R] and enter «Services.msc» (without the quotes).

Set 'Windows Search' and then 'Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service' to 'manual' start (or 'automatic' if you tend to regularly stream a lot of content from your phone or PC to other devices).

'Function Discovery Provider Host' - Startup is 'automatic' (delayed Start).

'Function Discovery Resource Publication' - 'automatic' (delayed Start).

b.) Enable Media Streaming.

Hold [Windows]+[R] and enter «Control» (without the quotes).

Click on 'Network and Sharing Centre' - 'Change advanced sharing settings'.

Scroll down to 'All Networks' and expand them by clicking the down arrow on the right side.

Under 'Media Streaming', click on the blue link to 'choose media streaming options' and 'allow all'.

c.) Reboot the computer.

If the phone does still not appear in File Explorer afterwards and you have no use for media sharing & streaming functionality, feel free to set all entries except for the 'Function Discovery ...' back to 'disabled'.

[5] HARDWARE ISSUES

Last but not least, the problem could be a bent pin or more likely, a faulty USB cable. If all else has failed, check whether connecting the phone to different ports on the computer or to a different computer, using a USB 3.1 gen 2 cable, and so on, solves the problem. If that is the case, throw away the cheap Chinese wire -- a good Thunderbolt cable costs $30, not $3. :)

- - - - -​

When the phone appears in Windows Explorer, it will look like a camera, mp3 player or scanner, not like a USB memory stick, external hard disk or other USB mass storage device. In other words, Google, phone manufacturers and telephone service providers took another option and control out of the owners' hands, because without a drive letter, the file types that can be copied from/to the phone and the possible actions are drastically limited in comparison to what would be possible if the phone was treated like a USB mass storage device with a drive letter.

There is an imperfect workaround to circumvent the impertinence, which we will look at in the following tutorial.

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