External drive troubles

[gorcorps]

Well I was downloading some music to my mp3 player last night when everything stopped and a window poped up saying "unknown device." Hmm, great. I tried uninstalling it and reinstalling but it's no longer recognized. Then another window poped up and now my 80 gig external hdd does the same thing! Both work in other PCs so it's definately my computer messing up. I tried reinstalling usb driver but they were already fine and everything else usb is working allright.

Do I have to reinstall windows? I really would rather not.

 

[hobbkins]

I have the same problem with my USB drive. For some reason on my computer it only recognizes the drive as an "Unknown Device". Since then, I have reinstalled Windows XP multiple times, and each time the same error occurs. I don't believe a clean install of Windows will fix your problem :-(. Unfortunately, I can't find drivers for my USB drive to reinstall, but you might have better luck with your HDD. *did you mean you tried uninstalling and installing drivers?*

Originally posted by: gorcorps
I tried uninstalling it and reinstalling but it's no longer recognized.

 

[gorcorps]

Yes that's what I meant. I don't get it, they were working fine before and now they dont!

 

[madthumbs]

Tried alternate usb ports?

 

[gorcorps]

Yes, I've tried everything of that nature. Diff ports, cables, devices, drivers, etc. I've been told about something in the registry that might be the problem, so I'm going to do that right now and see what happens.

 

[SGtheArtist]

Sounds like maybe you performed some windows updates and they changed something. Have you tried system restore?

Have you changed or installed any other software around the time this happened?

 

[gorcorps]

I have tried system restore, it didn't help. I was encoding a movie to this drive when it stoped being recognized, but that's it. The registry thing didn't help either. I might try reinstalling SP2 since that is where the usb drivers were installed from. I might even try system restore way back to see if it makes a difference.

 

[corkyg]

More often than not, that is a lack of sufficient power problem. Try a powered hub that has its own source - or use external devices with their own power source.

 

[gorcorps]

This drive does have it's own power source. Could it be something w/ the mobo and it's power? I reinstalled SP2 w/ no luck. It still says "unknown device."

 

[corkyg]

Yes - could be. Try a powered hub. That solved a similar problem for me.

 

[DaSaint]

i have had devices do that before on the USB port, what happened with them in short words is that it shorted out the USB Chip in it and killed it... some people said it was static electricity some others have said its caused by pulling the plug from the computer without removing it safely. that might be ure prob...

 

[gorcorps]

Sounds about right on both of you. I'm gonna go out and buy a seperate powered usb cord, port, hub or whatever and see if it fixes anything. Somebody at another forum said it was something that fried the ports too.

 

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: corkyg
Yes - could be. Try a powered hub. That solved a similar problem for me.

Do you think a pci usb2.0 card would be better than just a hub? Since the hub is plugging into a possibly messed up port, would't the hub be messed up too? I'm thinking I'll get something like this to see if it'll work:
http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&product%5Fid=25-3221

If that doesn't work, then my whole mobo might need to be replaced.

UPDATE: I bought a self powered usb hub but even that is an "unknown device." I'm going to return it for a pci card and see if it helps.

 

[gorcorps]

FIXED: a fresh install of windows and format fixed whatever was wrong.