USB hub recognised as "unknown", cannot activate anymore

[Frank]

I connected a new 2.0 hub on my older laptop with a 1.1
port. (W2K SP3) Windows recognised the new hub, first
as "USB2.0/xx hub xx" (forgot what xx was), then (failing
to find the drivers, probably) declared it
found "USB/unknown" and loaded that one.
The hub did not become active. I upgraded to SP4 (because
of its support of USB2.0) but that did not help. Windows
seems not to try to load anything for the hub anymore.
It works fine on a newer Windows XP machine. Strangely, it
was found (and loaded as "USB2.0/hub" or something
and "USB/hub" or something) when I connected it to an
older USB1.1 hub that I connected to the laptop and it
worked properly in that case.
Can I force Windows to forget all it knows about USB
drivers it ever loaded and try again?

 

[Vance Green]

Go to Device Manager, look for the unknown device,
uninstall it and reboot.

Let us know what happens.

 

[Frank]

I removed all USB related devices (hidden devices as well)
and rebooted. Windows found all internal USB devices (PCI
bridge, root hub), then the others as I connected them.
But it still does not react on the hub. The hub still
works properly on the Win XP machine (checked that just to
be sure).

Frank

 

[Vance Green]

Uninstall it again, but do NOT reboot.

Go to the WINNT\INF directory.

Sort the .INF's by date, and start looking for the one
that corresponds to your hub by looking at them with Notepad.
I don't really know what you'll be looking for, it's one of
those "you'll know it when you see it" kind of things.

Delete this .INF when you find it and reboot.

If this doesn't work, go looking for an old 1.1 hub,
you've spent enough time on this already ;-)