usb device not recognized in windows 7

Anonymous
2010-07-02T18:28:37+00:00

So it seems MS has a problem with " usb device not recognized in windows 7 ". A Google search will find no real solutions to the problem. I haven't found one hear ether. How can I have a handful of flash drives and external hard drives that will not work on only 2 Win7 systems that I know of ,yet work on others ? I never needed to download drivers from anyone to make them work on any other OS . I just plug them in and the work ... THE 1st TIME... not after trying all things that don't.  This is something that needs a REAL FIX. I should not have to pay Tech Support to find out why. This is clearly an OS Win7 problem. Thanks     This is real FRUSTRATING

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

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Anonymous
2010-07-03T13:29:23+00:00

Hi DJBigBang,


1. Have any USB or external drives worked on your computer? 2. What is the make and model of your computer?

As all the hardware devices have drivers associated similarly USB devices also have it. Sometimes proper drivers do not get detected after the initial installation so reinstallation of the drivers helps resolve the issues.

You may check after uninstalling and reinstalling the USB drivers if you are able to connect. You may disconnect all USB devices and then perform the following steps:

1.     ClickStart, and then click Control Panel.

2.     ClickSystem and Maintenance, click System, and then clickDevice Manager.

Note If Control Panel is in Classic View, double-clickSystem, and then click Device Manager.

If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or clickAllow.

**3.**In Device Manager, double click to expand "Universal Serial Bus controllers", right click on the Host Controller, click "Uninstall" and click "OK".

Check if at all there is an exclamation mark along the driver, it suggests issues with the driver installed.

4.     Repeat the step 2 to uninstall all items under "Universal Serial Bus controllers".

Then, restart your computer and Windows 7 will reinstall all USB controllers automatically.

If you still face the same issue then you may check for the updated USB device drivers using windows update. Refer to the below link for assistance–

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Update-a-driver-for-hardware-that-isnt-working-properly

If the issue sill persists I would request you to check for chipset driver updates which you can get at the manufacturer website. The chipset drivers normally incorporate USB controller drivers as well.


Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Meghmala – Microsoft Support

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Anonymous
2011-11-07T15:46:59+00:00

Hello DJBigBang,

There is an old Windows XP KB article that was recently updated with multiple steps to resolve these types of issues. The KB covers Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 with step by step methods. See if this helps.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330140

Bobby

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-12-06T16:49:01+00:00

    JordiAG

    Thank you, my USB stack was completely hosed -- Windows refused to recognize any hardware. After getting emergency access to my computer with an old PS/2 keyboard, and no mouse!!!, I enabled remote desktop connection on the broken PC. Then I logged on to it from a laptop using remote desktop.

    To locate the usb.inf files missing from C:\Windows\inf,  you need know the version that pertains to your installation.  They will be on your system already. To find them, I poked around in:

    C:\Windows\inf\setupapi.dev.log

    (so %SYSTEMROOT%\INF = C:\Windows\inf)

    and the previous version of this file setupapi.dev.20120812_......log

    In that previous version of the log, I looked for the string "usb.inf". This allowed me to figure out that it was originally copied into C:\Windows\inf from:

    C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\usb.inf_amd64_neutral_153b489118ee37b8

    This is of course system dependent. I copied both usb.inf and usb.pnf from there to C:\Windows\inf.

    And then the miracle happened: all my USB devices were correctly recognized: computer works again.

    Further, the log files relieved that the problem may have been caused by my VMWARE player installation or uninstallation. This has happened to other as well: http://www.techspot.com/community/topics/always-prompted-with-found-new-hardware-to-install-driver-software-for-any-usb-device.184645/

    It's amazingly incredible that Microsoft's Mr. Fixit doesn't perform this little check.  That'll be 10-20 lines of code I'd think.

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-12-31T17:33:58+00:00

    So rarely ion such message boards do I ever find solutuions that worked but this worked and only took 5 minutes!  Thank you, Thank you!  This isa problem that has plagued wndows 7 and it seems that the folks at MS dont really give a sh*t or else the above tame-wasting incojnveneince would not be necessary. If only stuf from MS worked as well as what I buy from Apple.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-01-12T07:47:14+00:00

    Sup!

    Had the same problem and tried like every possible solution found on internet - nothing worked.

    So after 6 hours of pointless work I attached my iPod to my other pc - and then back to my laptop and that solved the problem.

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