I have XP pro SP2. Recently I lost the ability to connect my flash drive and external HDD. The hardware are all working. The flash and ext. Drives connect on the other PC. And the USB port on my PC works because it still accepts my old slow Flash Drive.

I have tried to make sense of what I can find on the web but so far no success. I need someone to walk me thru what to do and allow me to respond with question/s.

Check out whether USB drivers are installed in the system by system properties-hardware-device manager. If not install the proper drivers.

Thanks for your help.

Here's a pic of my Device Manager Tree...

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h...

Your USB drivers are part of your main chipset drivers.
The first time you install Windows, or if you have re-installed Windows from scratch since, you must load the mboard main chipset drivers in order for Windows to have the proper info about your mboard, including the info about your USB controllers.
If the drivers haven't been loaded, your USB 1.1 may be recognized and work fine, but if your mboard has USB 2.0 it will probably not work. In that case if your newer flash drive and USB connected hard drive require USB 2.0, they will not work.
If you have the CD that came with the mboard, the main chipset drivers are on that.

Some older mboards have all or some ports that are USB 1.1 only, and if it has USB 2.0 only some ports may be USB 2.0, which also supports USB 1.1. Newer mboards are usually USB 2.0 on all ports, which also supports USB 1.1.

If that doesn't apply, or in any case,
check the voltages in your bios. If your 5 volts is too low (more than 10% low), your power supply is defective and your USB will not work correctly.
See response 4 in this:
http://www.computing.net/hardware/w...

If you have USB 2.0 it looks like your main chipset drivers have not been loaded, which include the USB 2.0 info Windows needs.

I have had this exact problem before, but cannot remember where I found the solution. I know it took me months to find a solution, with many people suggesting it was a driver problem, but it wasn't.

From memory, it involved deleting a certain registry key/s. I think it had something to do with the way XP enumerates USB devices.

Unfortunately, I didn't bookmark the web page that had the solution. I'll have a look for it, and post back if I find it.

Please let us know if you found someone's advice to be helpful.

After a quick search, I came across this website. While the website specifies a HP product, it involves the same steps that I had to follow. You just need to locate the right PID (for USB Mass Storage Device). On my machine, the PID that corresponds to my NexStar 3 external enclosure (listed as "Compatible USB storage device")is 2517.

Hope this helps.

Please let us know if you found someone's advice to be helpful.

Alright!!!! Sounds like we're gonna finally get some relief.

Here's an image of my Registry showing all the flash drives etc that have ever been plugged in. I'm unsure of the next step....

Do I just delete all?

http://www.up4world.com/images/stor...

Issue could potentially be as simple as the drive not being assigned a drive letter.... See info at http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtrouble...

According to your screen capture in response 2, you have an unknown USB device.
See response 4 and response 3.
Fix that first.

"USB Device not Recognized" appears whenever I plug any flash / HDD into any USB port. So "USB Device not Recognized" = whatever current removeable device I plug in.

According to the info with my flash drive, there is no additional driver required for XP.

You're not "getting" it.
Your screen capture in response 2 shows info about your USB controllers.
A "USB Device not Recognized" in Device Manager is a different message, and shows up in a different place. The two are not related.
If your mboard has USB 2.0, that's probably what the unknown under the USB controllers is, and installing the main chipset drivers will fix that. It may fix your other problem as well.

Before doing anything, backup the registry.
Next, make sure none of your USB storage devices are connected.
It should then be safe to delete all the keys indicated in your link.
You will also have to look through all the VID & PID keys above the USBSTOR section to find any corresponding entries.
Open each one to find which one/s contain an entry called "Mfg", that has a string value of "Compatible USB storage device".
Delete any keys that correspond (the whole key, Vid & Pid, in the left pane).
Reboot, then plug in a USB storage device and shout, "Whoopee!!!".

Please let us know if you found someone's advice to be helpful.

I lost my USB ports a few days ago and having tried everything I could find on the net (short of re-installing Windows) the following worked for me: Enter your BIOS during boot and look for 'Legacy USB Ports'. The setting was ENABLED and out of interest I changed it to DISABLED, my USB ports are now working again! I hadn't touched my BIOS settings prior to losing USB and 'restoring defaults' in my BIOS ENABLED Legacy USB. I'm running Windows XP Home on a Fujitsu Siemens AMILO Pro notebook. Good luck. Nigel

59Rocker

Turning off legacy USB should have no effect on whether your USB ports work otherwise, as long as the USB controllers are enabled in the bios.
Legacy USB is to support a USB keyboard or USB mouse while booting early in the boopt sequence, such as to get into and be used in the bios Setup.

Did you by any chance update your bios?

Did you re-load all the chipset drivers for your mboard after the last time you loaded or re-loaded Windows from scratch after Setup was finished?

Legacy USB was the only setting I changed and I only explored the BIOS after losing USB. I did re-flash my BIOS (again after losing USB) but the update is described as 'minor' by my notebook manufacturer (Fujitsu Siemens). Their tech support suggested re-installing Windows but that failed early in the process with a fatal error message 'file iastor.sys could not be found, setup failed'.

"I did re-flash my BIOS"

You must make sure bios defaults have been loaded for the new bios version. Some flash procedures do that automatically; some specify you must do that manually after flashing the bios.
If the bios defaults have not been loaded, what you see in the bios Setup are the cmos settings for the old bios version, or a mixture of settings for the newer and older bios versions - the bios cannot work properly in that case. If you're not sure whether the bios defaults have been loaded, load them - it can do no harm, and may cure your problems.

My standard ramble:

After you flash the bios, the first time you boot you will get a "Cmos Checksum Error...." or similar message. You will either be prompted to enter the bios Setup or you will automatically go there. Enter the bios Setup, and load Bios Defaults - save settings, reboot. You MUST do this (or Clear the CMOS by moving a jumper on the mboard) in order for the bios update to be fully accepted by the mboard.
Loading Defaults may work in situations where Clear Cmos does not help.
If you have AGP video, after you flash the bios make sure your AGP video is enabled in the bios, has been assigned an IRQ (if there is a setting for that), and AGP video is initialized first - if those are set to PCI, you may have no video once Windows ME or earlier starts to load; for Win 2000 or XP you will probably have video but it is in PCI mode and the superior capabilities of the AGP video are not enabled.
If you have a fairly recent model scanner or printer (~1999 or later) connected to a parallel (LPTx) port, you also need to make sure it is set to EPP, EPP/ECP, or ECP mode in the bios - usually EPP is fine - ECP mode also requires you use Add Hardware in Windows to install an ECP port if it is not already there in Device Manager.
......

"Their tech support suggested re-installing Windows but that failed early in the process with a fatal error message 'file iastor.sys could not be found, setup failed'."

iastor.sys has nothing to do with USB support.
You experienced a common error people get when trying to install Windows on a mboard with an onboard Intel SATA controller.

A search of the web with: iastor.sys
finds:

"iaStor.sys is the driver for onboard Intel SATA support...
It allows hard drives and other peripherals attached to an Intel motherboard via the SATA controller to work. "

The Intel SATA controller may or may not have RAID capability.

How your bios Setup is set regarding SATA determines whether you need the driver or not.

E.g. this guy has a SATA RAID controller:

"I am booting from the WINXP cd and i can get thorough the "F6"
thing fine by choosing the AHCI option, it recognizes my drive, formats
fine but when it starts copying the files it says it cant copy
"iaStor.sys" "iaStor.inf" "iaAHCI" (not sure what the extensions on the
ahci files are)"

"Well, i got it to work by changing BIOS settings to:
SATA Mode: IDE
On-chip Serial ATA: Auto
During install i did not hit F6 at all, the drive was recognized
by installer on its own..

well, after installation i set BIOS to RAID; i was ale to boot up WinXP
and then i made it update the drivers for the Ultra ATA controller to a
SATA RAID controller
.........

If you have SATA RAID, if you use ACHI or RAID in the bios Setup settings, there is also an specific install procedure and a download for a special floppy you need to make on the Intel web site that you load after pressing F6 at the beginning of Setup.
....

Another guy solved the problem simply by starting Setup with the 6 floppy XP Setup set rather than the XP CD. He didn't mention what his bios settings were though.

"ITS FIXED!!! Got it working. I downloaded the six disk windows intaller from -
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=... "

*** Update ***

After one whole day with working USB ports I shut my laptop down and when I powered it up again they'd gone... 'USB device not recognized'!

I spoke too soon! :(

The BIOS looks OK and I can't believe drivers would come and go so perhaps it's an intermittent hardware fault?

"USB device not recognized" does not necessarily mean the USB ports don't work.

E.g. See response 3 - if you don't have the right chipset drivers loaded your USB 2.0 controller may be called that.

Aside from that, if you are having internal power problems in your laptop, if there is not enough 5v power or if the actual 5v power value is too low, your USB ports are not going to work properly - check the current voltage readings in your bios Setup.

Hold old is your battery? Are you sure your AC power adpter is okay?

If the 5v looks okay, try unplugging all your USB devices and re-booting, and if the USB ports then work plug in USB devices one at a time and reboot each time until you pin down what is causing the problem.

"The BIOS looks OK "

You can't tell if there are problems in the cmos part of the bios by it's appearance. If you aren't sure whether the Bios Defaults were loaded when you flashed the bios, then load them!

*** Update 2 ***

Following a few days of experimenting I can confirm that in my case the problem is hardware. When I lose USB a firm thump on the left side of my notebook will restore the two ports beneath and also the two at the rear. My notebook is just over a year old and well-travelled so something common to all the USB ports is clearly loose or more likely in need of soldering. Nigel

I assume your laptop is no longer under warranty. If you could reveal the make and model (the specific one on the label, probably on the bottom of it) I might be able to point you to a maintenance manual for it and you could take it apart and take a look to see if you can find and fix the problem yourself if you're handy. Or if it's just a poor or broken solder connection or similar, it probably wouldn't cost all that much to have a laptop repair place fix.

Cool, thank you, it is out of warranty.

Fujitsu Siemens AMILO Pro V2010

I replaced the hard-drive in my previous notebook without problems so sight of a manual would be pure luxury :)

Email: ntype <at> btinternet.com

Regards, Nigel

Unfortunately, it appears fujitsu-siemens doesn't have maintenance manuals avaialable.
If you had a Compaq or HP or some other brand, some of those have maintenance manuals available.

You may aleady have these on the CD that came with the computer, or you may have printed versions, and/or they may be already on your computer somewhere.
Go here:
http://support.fujitsu-siemens.com/...

In search box top right enter V2010

Scroll down, click on Drivers and Downloads on right side of page

change selection to Amilo Pro V2xxx series, V2010

All available downloads are on the resulting page.
Click on Manuals on left side

There's an Easy Guide manual, and a Getting Started manual, but no maintenance manual.

Thanks for trying Tubesandwires.

Nigel

Thanks for tying up the thread.