Portable devices not showing on my control panel.

They don't automatically show in Windows 7 as in previous versions they must be turned on to see them. Go to Computer then Organize, open Folder and Search options and open the View Tab. Scroll down to Show hidden files, folders and drives and check it if it is not then press Apply and OK. They will be visible after this.

Where are you looking for them? All hardware is lumped together under Hardware & Sound. But you don't use the control panel to operate the drives. Use Windows Explorer instead. Click on the folder icon on the left side of the taskbar to open explorer or use the KB shortcut Windows key + E.

You're absolutely right - this stumped me for a while until I stumbled on the solution - why Microsoft decided to do this in Windows 7 I cannot imagine. I can only think it is a mistake on their part.

My solution was slightly different - In the "Folder and Search Options" panel I put a tick in the "Show all folders" box in the "Navigation pane" section under the "General" tab - this seems to have the benefit of not showing the hidden fles, but still showing the Media Card Reader drives in the Navigation pane of Explorer.

Bernard 

Well I'm probably not the only one who disagrees that making life difficult is progress - it would be interesting to understand the 'logic' that resulted in this decision.

That's because a portable device is considered a folder, don't you just love progress!:emotion-5:

So to combine them into one macro -

* Open Computer
* Click Tools- Folder Options
* In the General tab under Navigation, insert a check to Show all folders
* Click Apply
* Click the View tab
* Remove the check from Hide empty drives in the Computer folder
* Add a check to Show drive letters
* Click Apply- OK