Windows 10 Toshiba Laptop usb port problem

debitcardmayhem

Dustybee said:

Jenni_D said:

See if you can download and create one (on a USB stick) via another computer? (If you have access to one of course - which you seemingly do have if you've tested your USB sticks).

Okay, I'll give it a try.  What is the purpose of trying this?  Is it just to see if the laptop will boot from the usb drive?

If you try to load a live usb that may rule out "hardware" problems with the PC and whilst you have a live system it will allow you to insert another USB stick to see if it is seen , which may suggest a problem within Windows. I would suggest perhaps https://www.system-rescue.org/ but most Linux live isos will do to help to rule out Windows 

CoastingHatbox

A few questions here about the problem.

1) Are the storage devices accessible via the USB port if you ignore the option and elect not to format the disk?

2) Do you see the same message when you plug the USB storage device in via a dongle?
3) Have you formatted the USB storage devices affected on the Toshiba laptop or another machine?
4) Having formatted a USB storage device on the Toshiba, are you 'safely ejecting' the drive before you remove it?
5) Are the storage devices with the problem all formatted the same way? (FAT32 I suspect)
6) Assuming you are always safely ejecting the USB drives, do you still see the problem if your format a USB storage device with NTFS?

7) Are all the drivers on the laptop up-to-date, particularly any USB device drivers

The most common reason for Windows displaying the message, is a corrupted partition table/file system. We may need to dig into whether that is the case here, and how/why the corruption is occuring.

Dustybee

Thanks for the replies.  I have now tried to boot the laptop from the usb drive with a Windows 10 bootable usb.  It booted up from the usb and the Windows blue screen automatic repair tool came up.  I went through the troubleshooting to repair but I got a Windows unable to repair message.

To answer CoastingHatbox - 
1. No it says E:\ not accessible and even saying yes to format, windows reports that it can't format E.
2.  Not sure what you mean via a dongle.  I've tried micro sd cards through the card reader and with a usb stick reader, same thing no access, will not format.
3.  This laptop has read these usb sticks and sd cards before, it will have even written data to the usb drive. Not in the last few weeks though.
4.  Yes I do, can't say 100% of the time, it may get removed sometimes without ejecting first in the past.
5.  Yes all FAT32.  I tried a full format - unticking the quick format box.  The progress line went all the way to the end then came up with the error 'Windows unable to format E'.
6. Just tried a NTFS format on the same usb stick as I tried the 'full FAT32 format' on and it formatted it. Copied an image file to it, it was read by another laptop, copied another file on from there and back to the Toshiba and it read it and loaded up the jpeg file added by the other laptop.
7. Yes definitely. Have deleted the usb hub controller and its been reinstalled. Windows has no errors and reports all devices are working correctly.

A corrupted file system/partition table sounds bad. Hope some of the answers above have narrowed things down a bit!

Thanks for reading.

cx6

Have you re-installed clean windows (in a separate partition) as I suggested and checked if that cures your problem?

You need a 'known good' system to proceed further

Dustybee

cx6 said:

Have you re-installed clean windows (in a separate partition) as I suggested and checked if that cures your problem?

You need a 'known good' system to proceed further

I haven't done this, mainly because I don't know how to, sorry.

cx6

Well one thing you can try is settings / update and security / recovery and reset this PC

You can re-install Windows and either delete everything else (ie a clean install) or keep your stuff - problem with the latter is that it might be your stuff that is causing Windows to misbehave.

If you can copy off your data and are able to re-install any apps etc at a later date they I recommend a clean install - then you can see if it cures the problem. If the problem remains then it points to a hardware problem

debitcardmayhem

Have you tried running a microsoft troubleshooter https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/use-a-fix-it-tool-with-windows-10-cc3cb85b-91d7-7e56-8ce1-db50b4d18d0b

I am on Linux at the moment and cant run the find troubleshooter link on that web page