Today, coming back from a trip, I connected my N900 to my PC to transfer the pictures and clips I'd made, as I've done several times already.

Only this time it didn't work. There was no error message on the N900, but I didn't get the "mass storage/PC suite" mode menu either, just the "charging" message.

There was no error on the PC side either, I did get two new drives & letters mounted, only they're "empty": when I click on them, I get the "Please insert disc" dialog. (This is with Windows XP). MyDocs and the SD card are still accessible from the N900 file manager.

I have read a few of the threads with USB/mass storage problems in their titles, and although the symptoms described are different, tried some of the advice there: power cycling both machines, changing cables, uninstalling USB device from registry, etc., to no avail.

I have also tried connecting to two other XP devices: they both detect a new device in "storage mode" (still no menu on the N900), with the same result (charging and two empty drives).

This makes me think the problem is on the N900 side. I didn't install "usb control" or other USB-related packages, but maybe something else messed it up. Any ideas/advice ?
TIA,
fpp

Try clicking the status bar and selecting the USB icon there.

Thanks for that, you just saved my life :-)

The thing is, there was *NO* USB icon in the status bar... which vaguely reminded me of something... and led me to the culprit!

I'll note it here in case anyone does the same stupid thing I did: looking at my list of installed apps I found something called "Powatool", and remembered playing with it sometime ago.

So I started it and looked around... and sure enough, in the Status Bar section, somewhere down the list, the "USB status menu" was disabled :-)

It looks like disabling the status bar icon also disables the entire functionality: checking the item again immediately brought up the menu on the N900, and the content in the two drives. So there goes Powatool, too powerful a tool for me...

Thanks for setting me on the right track!