FLASH DRIVE FREEZES MY PC

[Vanillaman]

I just bought a flash drive for my WinXP SP2 Home edition. As soon as I
inserted it, my computer froze and locked up. I've tried it in all my
additional USB ports and it remains the same. Even if I insert it prior to
boot up, Windows stops and freezes. My webcam works fine and the memory stick
light comes on, but the `New Hardware Detected' indicator doesn't even show.
I don't have anything else taking up USB ports other than my webcam. I've
tried it in other computers, not my own, and it worked fine.

This seems to be a mystery, which nobody seems to have an answer for?????

NO SILLY ANSWERS PLEASE

 

[smlunatick]

I just bought a flash drive for my WinXP SP2 Home edition. As soon as I
inserted it, my computer froze and locked up. I've tried it in all my
additional USB ports and it remains the same. Even if I insert it prior to
boot up, Windows stops and freezes. My webcam works fine and the memory stick
light comes on, but the `New Hardware Detected' indicator doesn't even show.
I don't have anything else taking up USB ports other than my webcam. I've
tried it in other computers, not my own, and it worked fine.

This seems to be a mystery, which nobody seems to have an answer for?????

NO SILLY ANSWERS PLEASE

Have / did you ever install your motherboard's chipset drivers? These
drivers usually hel XP to correctly access motherboard resources.

 

[Paul]

I just bought a flash drive for my WinXP SP2 Home edition. As soon as I
inserted it, my computer froze and locked up. I've tried it in all my
additional USB ports and it remains the same. Even if I insert it prior to
boot up, Windows stops and freezes. My webcam works fine and the memory stick
light comes on, but the `New Hardware Detected' indicator doesn't even show.
I don't have anything else taking up USB ports other than my webcam. I've
tried it in other computers, not my own, and it worked fine.

This seems to be a mystery, which nobody seems to have an answer for?????

NO SILLY ANSWERS PLEASE

These pages are by a regular contributor here. You could have
a look here.

http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbstick_e.html
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtrouble_e.html

If it was my drive, I'd go to the working computer, and use a copy
of a "USBView" type application. This one, from Microsoft, was intended
to help with debugging USB camera devices, but it just as easily
displays the enumeration info from any plugged in USB device.

UVCView download (page moved on Microsoft site, so now using archived copy)

http://web.archive.org/web/20070516...com/whdc/device/stream/vidcap/UVCViewdwn.mspx

The output looks similar to what is pictured here.

http://www.die.de/blog/content/binary/usbview.png

That will give the same info that the OS uses, to load
a driver as a function of the device type for USB. Like
a Mass Storage driver, if the device was Mass Storage
type.

Some flash sticks have a couple partitions, and one partition
may contain an "autorun" file. The intention, is so that
the stick can run some kind of software of its own. It could
be that some aspect of that is broken.

Hope that gives you something to start with,
Paul