USB problem

fusty

Hello
Hope someone can help with a slight problem I have.

My computer (tower unit) won't recognize anything I plug into a USB port, (camera,phone MP3 player,etc) but they all work when connected to my laptop.

does anyone have any idea why this could be & how I can cure it?

a mate told me to restore to factory settings, but this a bit drastic! I have backed up the important stuff.

cheers in advance

Fusty
:beer:

TakeThis

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817900

You can also check that they are not disabled in the BIOS.

There is also the 'Try' option when booting up with an Ubuntu disc, to check that it is not a hardware problem.

fusty

Tried the support link but still not working. its confusing because if i plug the mouse into the same usb port it recognises it and it works, but not a 'mass stoage device'. i try to open it via the my computer removable drive icon but it says it is not formatted (this applies to everything) but they all work on the laptop.

sorry to sound thick but how do i check they are not disabled in BIOS

cheers

Dave_C_2

I had a similar problem, plugging into the USB port on the front of the tower not too good. Plugging in at the back where the USB port is straight from the motherboard no problems.

Worth a try.

Dave

myrrh

have you tried as stated above the other ports, if there are any. can you supply some more details, Operating system, motherboard etc.

fusty

operating system is windows XP, no idea about motherboard. printer, mouse & keyboard all work fine when pluged into any usb port but when i plug in camera, phone or mp3 player nothing happens & when i try to open them it says device not formatted. all these devices have worked on this computer & do work on my laptop, for some reason this problem has just started occuring. my wife formatted her mp3 player when asked & that did nothing (i reformatted on the laptop to get it working again)
hope this helps.

fwor

This is going to sound daft but... have you tried turning it off and on?

What I mean is, turning the PC off, unplugging the mains and holding in the on/off switch to discharge the power supply. Unlikely as it sounds, this has worked for me in the past, where the PC's onboard chipset has got itself into an odd state, and can't clear itself because a "normal" power-off does not power off the motherboard USB devices.

fusty

tried all the above & so far still not working!!!

Dave_C_2

I'm not an expert but:
Right click on My Computer and select Manage
Select Device manager in the left-hand panel
In the right panel scroll down to Universal Serial Bus controllers and click the little square to expand it
There should be a line USB mass storage device Right click and select Properties

Look for yellow exclamation marks or error codes and report back.

In the following window mine says "device is working normally" and there is an option to troubleshoot. After this I'm struggling.

Dave

MarrowFarmer

Have you got a partition or extra disk space plugged in anywhere? Sometimes the new disk takes the same drive letter as the USB mass storage has assigned. Plug a stick in and check disk management then reassign the USB drive to another drive letter.

fwor

Following on from what Dave says above, I've also had some success (assuming that they do ~not~ have any exclamation marks shown) by deleting all of the USB hubs and controllers (typically that can be up to 9 port and hub controller devices).

Power off and reboot, wait until they are autodetected and then see if there's any difference.