Automatically detecting types of external FLASH devices is provided, and may comprise communicating one or more read memory device ID commands corresponding to at least one supported memory device to at least one memory device. Data received in response to this communication may be utilized to determine whether the received data identifies the memory device as one of the plurality of supported memory devices. The supported memory devices may be serial FLASH memory devices. Each read memory device ID command may be manufacturer specific, or may be specific to a group of the supported memory devices. The communicating of read memory device ID commands and determining whether the memory device is a supported memory device may be repeated if the memory device is not identified as one of the supported memory devices. There may be a limit to the number of times this is repeated.