If your Windows computer doesn't recognise your Android phone... [View all]

After (accidentally) upgrading my Windows 8 laptop to Windows 8.1, it no longer recognised my ancient Android G1 as external storage. I already had that problem with my main Windows 7 desktop, but was now forced to confront the issue.

The following steps worked on Windows 7 (x64) and Windows 8.1 (x64) machines when connected to a Cyanogenmodded G1 running Froyo. I'm throwing it out here in case it might help anyone else. Googling didn't find me the solution, but that might be me, or maybe this is an unusual situation.

With the phone connected on USB (but not mounted), go to the control panel, open up both Device Manager AND Devices and Printers.

On Device Manager, do you see "ADB Interface", and on Devices and Printers, do you see "Android Phone" under "Unspecified"? You might have the same problem I did.

On Device Manager, expand "ADB Interface", right-click on the phone model, properties, driver tab, and click "Uninstall". Check "Delete the driver software for this device" and hit OK. Unplug and plug the phone back in.

Notice that ADB Interface did not get re-added under Device Management, but on your Devices and Printers screen, you now have "Android Phone" listed under devices. On your phone, select "Mount" or "Turn on USB storage".

Voila, it now recognises the drive. A quick perusal of Device Manager suggests that the system is now using native Windows USB storage drivers instead.