HELP! New USB devices will no longer install

[Guest]

I have a Toshiba M45 Satellite laptop with 3 USB ports and am running Xp SP2.
Recently (I'm not sure exactly when) my USB ports stopped allowing me to
install new devices. I have various USB devices installed on my laptop
(thumb drive, external hard drive, mouse, etc.). When I plug them in, they
still work fine. But when I plug in a new USB device, it pops up the New
Hardware wizard, displays the correct name of the device, and then, when I
tell it to install automatically, it says that it can't find the software for
the device and the device was not installed. For example, I just got a NEW
thumbdrive (a U3 Cruzer that I had taken the U3 software off of on my
desktop, so it runs like a normal thumbdrive) and I tried to plug it into my
laptop. It recognized it as a U3, but took forever while trying to find the
right driver and then said there was an error in installation.
Previously (before the problem), the wizard didn't pop up at all and it just
installed my devices. I have tried looking in the list in the wizard but
half the time I don't know what "device type" to pick.
I have uninstalled and reinstalled all of the USB port drivers twice.
Can anyone help me PLEASE?

 

[antioch]

I have a Toshiba M45 Satellite laptop with 3 USB ports and am running Xp
SP2.
Recently (I'm not sure exactly when) my USB ports stopped allowing me to
install new devices.

Clipped

Try here if no help in this group

http://www.everythingusb.com/

Antioch

 

[Guest]

I took a look there and the troubleshooting board is no longer accepting
posts. Any other places I could look.

 

[sdlomi2]

I took a look there and the troubleshooting board is no longer accepting
posts. Any other places I could look.

Maybe try the sites of a couple of USB devices now refusing to be seen?
s

 

[Ace]

Have you installed "McAfee VirusScan Enterprise" (either with or without
the spyware module) recently?

This is a long shot but that software package has an 'access control'
module which prevents driver and hardware installations, and break
several other normal software installations; i.e. anything that wants to
write to the \Windows folder or subfolders.. thus preventing you from
even plugging in the simplest of devices into an USB port and have it
installed.
To circumvent McAfee you have to turn it off during installation.
As far as I know this is the only Antivirus package that behaves this
agressive.

Also you should check in device manager for any USB device with a yellow
'!' icon on it, these are either not correctly installed or indicate
other faults. It is often SAFE to select such devices, hit the Delete
button, and have Windows attempt to re-detect them, 99% of the cases
i've seen the driver is retained in Windows despite the fact it informs
you you are 'removing' it from your system.

 

[antioch]

I took a look there and the troubleshooting board is no longer accepting
posts. Any other places I could look.

PW
Did you try to register to post in their forum - is that what you meant by
'troubleshooting board'?

http://www.everythingusb.com/forums/register.php?s=&action=signup

I can see no probs on the site - just tried it.

Antioch

 

[Guest]

I did register in the forum, but when I tried to either enter a new thread or
reply to an existing thread, I got the message "This board is no longer
accepting new posts".

 

[Guest]

I have McAfee VirusScan Plus installed. Tried turning it off, no luck.
Also, I have actually gone into the device manager and checked for the items
with the yellow "!" next to them. I have uninstalled them and/or deleted
every device I've tried about 3 or 4 times from there. Still no luck.

 

[Phillip Singletary]

First thing I would do is go to the Toshiba website and look for new
drivers.
If that doesn't work, plug a flash drive into one of the USB ports. right
click on my computer, choose manage and select "Disk management". see if the
drive shows up but doesn't have drive letter assigned. if it doesn't, right
click on the area that has the diagonal lines through it and choose change
drive letter. be sure to pick a letter that is not going to be used for
anything else.
next, if it is still not working, right click on my computer and choose
device manager. see if one of the items have a yellow triangle or question
mark. if so, you still have a driver issue. see if you can roll back the
driver by going to properties of that item, on the driver tab select roll
back driver.

if none of these work, restart your computer into safe mode and see if you
can get it to work that way by pressing F8 when your computer first comes on
but before windows is loading.You only have a few seconds usually so be sure
to be ready and press it two or three time for good measure. open up my
computer and look for the drive. if it is still not there you will need to
go to start, run, type msconfig and on the startup tab uncheck all items
that are not related to antivirus, dialup service provider if you have
dialup, and any other programs that you would want to be running all the
time. keep in mind that you do not need programs to run at startup to use
them when necessary and if they are not labeled well it is likely spyware or
junk. when you open them, they will start then. Restart. this will also make
your computer startup and run faster as you want have tons of programs
running unnecessarily using up limited hardware resources.

now, if you didn't have any new yellow triangles or question marks after you
plugged in the flash drive, and you didnt see the drive listed in disk
management, and it doesn't work when in safe mode - you may have a hardware
issue.

peace \-/
|