weird USB performance.

[Don Simard]

over the holidays I received a USB MP3 player. It appeared as a mass storage
drive as expected. It came with a cd that I installed on my laptop, thinking
it had a music manager on it. It installed a device driver names "SMI
Factory Drivers" and was not signed. Against my better judgement, I clicked
past that and let it install. Now the computer never sees the USB MP3 player
as a memory stick. My desktop (without the SMI Factory Drivers) sees the MP3
stick as a memory stick without any trouble


I also recently received a Garmin GPS receiver (Nuvi 360). The laptop (with
the SMI Drivers) does not see it as a memory device - the desktop does. I
downloaded the program from Garmin to update the software or to load POI
files. These programs never see the garmin. The desktop works flawlessly.

I tried to uninstall the SMI drivers but they have proven persistent. When
attached, the GARMIN is installed as Other Device and it has an error on it
in device manager. - it does try to install something but fails saying it
cannot find the necessary software.

HELP. I have exhausted all I can think of. Any ideas how to get rid of the
SMI Factory Drivers for good so I can see the GARMIN and MP3 stick?

thanx
Don

 

[Len B]

Santa has been busy ;-)
Have you tried a restore point?
--Len

 

[Don Simard]

seems that system restore were not activated - in the C Drive partition form
System Control Panel/System Restore Tab.

is there another option?

 

[Len B]

Sorry Don,
Somehow I missed your reply.

Only other suggestion is to use Device Manager to kill it
Highlight device, then properties, then Driver tab.
Before uninstalling, Click Driver Details and write info down.
This way, if uninstall fails, you can just go kill the driver files
directly.

-- Len