could not get the USB Cradle to Hotsync on my Compaq Presario w/XP. I bought the USB with Serial connector and it worked the first time and everytime since then. There is definitely a problem with Palm's USB driver... anyway the serial seems to work fine. I Hotsync Outlook XP, Docs to Go, and Rand McNally maps and unless I have a ton of maps to do, it take about 5 - 10 mins at most to Hotsync with Serial. I can live with that.

I have now completely lost all USB Function on my PC three times thanks to my Palm M515. First time I apparently blew the USB’s on my Motherboard, fortunately at only 50 weeks old I managed to blag a new MoBo from Hewlett Packard. Everything was OK for 3 weeks until I plugged my palm in again and tried to Hotsync…..Nothing. With the new Mobo I had gained a few other problems, which resulted in reformatting my hard drive and reinstalling Windows(98) again everything worked OK, therefore the USB’s were not fried as suggested on this and other forums. Again everything worked for a few weeks until bang…nothing. This time I bought a PCI 4-port USB Card, plugged it in and away we went. After about 4 weeks I “Lost” 2 ports and after another 4 weeks lost the other 2. I tried simply “Refreshing” windows….Nothing. Uninstall my USB drivers and reinstall…….Nothing. So after visiting several sites and forums I formulated the following cunning plan. Which has worked and all of my USB ports now work (Again), Hotsync functions. I’m no computer expert so please be very careful as this involves messing around with the system registry, if you are not sure what you are doing it may be best to ask someone who does to assist in backing everything up first. Here’s the procedure……. Close HotSync on the taskbar. Right-click My Computer and click Properties. On the Device Manager tab, click the plus (+) sign next to Universal Serial Bus Controller. Click each item listed, and click Remove. When all USB items are removed, click OK. If prompted, do not reboot. From the Windows Start menu, click Run. In the Open field, type REGEDIT and click Enter. Note: Remember to make the backup of the registry before proceeding. Navigate to the following key categories: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\SERVICES\CLASS\USB HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ENUM\USB HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Open "Software". Find the US Robotics entry and expand it. Select Pilot Desktop folder and delete it. Highlight each one, and click Delete. Exit Regedit Open Run on Start menu, enter "C:\Palm\hotsync -r" using your correct path to the HotSync.exe. Be sure to add the " -r" after it. This is what will rebuild the Registry entries. After a few moments, you should see the HotSync icon appear in the System Tray on the Taskbar. Before doing anything else, restart your machine. Windows will detect all USB devices and reinstall the drivers for them. Note: You may be asked for the Windows Installation CD during this process in order to complete the detection of the hardware. (I would suggest that you use the Windows CD rather than any drivers which may be on your Hard Drive). Finally I simply reinstalled the Palm desktop, I guess that you could try uninstalling the desktop first. You will also need to reinstall any third party applications as well. My problem seems to be due to connecting the Palm to either the Cradle or Belkin Cable whilst the PC is turned on, try to connect to your PC before turning on... It worked for me……..Good Luck

Hi Jazper, it seems that we have the same probs :) I tried it first on a compaq pressario, too. Than i tried it on several machines which all based on win xp. No chance. XP will notice the usb device but its impossible to install the palmusb driver correctly. It seems that there is no relation to the driver and the cradle otherwise the pda. In my case it is a sony clie T625C. And i bought it as an USB cradle only :) So you are doin well with your serial :) Is there any idea what i can do now ? Thanks and greetz from cologne, germany Steve