Pi Pico W is not recognised by thonny after installing micro python

Question

I was wondering if anyone could help me with an issue with my Pi Pico W.

I just got a new Pi Pico W and went to the guide to see how to set it up, I installed thonny and held the bootsel button down while plugging in the pico. After doing so I downloaded the pico w micropython uf2 file from the official micropython website. I moved the file onto the pico drive that was picked up by my windows 10 computer as per the guide. The drive closed, I waited a minute, unplugged and replugged the pico back into my pc, aaand nothing. According to the guide I should be able to select the pico from thonny but it doesn’t see the pico. I tried manually selecting com1 in thonny but if I try to run a simple print(“hello world!”) script I get an error saying the pico is busy, make sure the board isn’t in bootsel mode.

I’ve tried just about every possible solution I could find on forums and documentation but I still can’t get thonny to recognise the pico. I tried using the arduino IDE, same issue, the pico doesn’t show up automatically on com. Selecting com1 doesn’t allow me to upload scripts to the pico, same error as thonny. I tried using the flash nuke provided by adafruit, which seemed to do something, but after trying to reinstall micropython I get the same issue as before. I also tried installing micropython using thonny but after copying the file over it says, ‘waiting for port…’ ‘warning port not found after 10 seconds’. I can see the pico listed as ‘android device’ in device manager(I’m not sure what else to look for but that’s what I saw change when I unplugged the pico). At this point I’m completely lost, I’ve seen other people have similar issues but they are either on win 7 or Raspberry pi os which doesn’t help because the win 7 fix was a win 7 specific driver and the raspberry pi os fix was restating the raspberry pi. I did try restarting my pc which still didn’t do anything. I’m not sure if I’m missing something or if I’m being dumb so if someone could shed some light on why this might be happening that would be greatly appreciated, thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Ok so I figured it out. Turns out I didn't have the correct USB driver, I used zadig and installed 'USB Serial (CDC)' onto the pico and it worked immediately. For anyone else who might experience this issue in the future:

1. download zadig from https://zadig.akeo.ie
2. install micropython onto the pico(I'm not sure if you need to do this yet but that's how I did it)
3. open zadig as administrator and select 'Options'
4. From options select 'List all devices' and then from the main dropdown select 'Board CDC (interface 0)' (yours might be different)
5. then click the up arrow next to the driver window on the right to select 'USB Serial (CDC)'
6. click 'Replace Driver' and wait
7. check thonny to see if the pico shows up

If anyone has anything to add to this, feel free to comment!