Are you having issues with your Windows 10 computer not detecting your Android phone as a USB storage drive or mass storage device? Not to worry, we’d get that fixed in a bit. But before then, some preamble as usual.
I experienced the same thing on my windows 10 PC. Although that wasn’t the situation when I newly upgraded, it suddenly started acting up probably after an update.
Before now, I tried a lot of methods in getting it fixed but all to no avail. I tried changing the USB cable, tried restoring the OS to a previous working state, downloaded and installed MTP driver but all proved abortive.
Funny thing is, while my infinix and Tecno phones were not being detected as USB storage devices, a Samsung tablet, my iPad and my iPhone worked out well on the computer.
Considering the fact that a Samsung tablet was properly detected as a storage device thus giving me the ability to transfer files between the computer and the tablet, I felt the issue could be with Android phones powered by MTK processors.
I felt this way because the infinix phone and the tecno phone both powered by MediaTek (MTK) chips were not being detected as mass storage devices. Hence, I decided to download an MTK USB driver in a bid to fixing the issue. But guess what? That didn’t work either.
I resulted to using my spear computer which I also recently upgraded from windows 7 vista to windows 10 and it was same thing. There and then I knew, it’d most likely be an issue with windows 10.
Enough of the long story. Here is how I was able to fix Windows 10 not detecting these Android phones as USB storage device or mass storage.
Fix Windows 10 Computer Not Detecting Android Phone
Step 1 : Turn Android Phone USB debugging On
Depending on the kind of Android phone you use, you may have to enable USB debugging first. To get that done, navigate to settings > About Phone 7 > Tap Build Number repeatedly till you see a notification saying you are now a developer.
Now return back to settings and you’d find ‘Developer options‘. Tap on that and turn the first option ON. Scroll down to USB debugging and toggle that ON as well.
Scroll down to Select USB configuration and choose MTP (Media Transfer Protocol). That’s it.
Although this doesn’t apply to every Android phone, there’s really no harm to turn on USB debugging mode on your Android phone.
Step 2 : Fixing Android Phone not detected on Windows 10 PC
Place your cursor on the start icon (Don’t click it immediately), right click and click on Device Manager.
Connect your Android phone to your computer using a working USB cable. Under other devices, your Android phone should be detected as either MTP or unknown device.
Right click on it and click on Update Driver Software.
Choose the second option which states browse my computer for driver software.
Choose Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.
Make sure Show all devices is selected and click on Next.
Select MTP USB device and click on Next.
Wait a few seconds till you get a notification which states Windows has successfully updated your driver software.
Now close the device manager and open My PC. You should realize that your Android phone has been detected as a USB drive and you can now transfer files between your computer and your Android phone.
