USB Used to Recognized and now isn't.

[alexowens]

Hello,

I have 4 USB ports and 4 USB's. 3 of the 3 USB do NOT show up and do nothing. They all sit in the:Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Devices and Printers listed as "USB Disk" and "USB Mass Storage Device."

The 3 not working, DID work before. How long ago, I do not recall but, they DID WORK!

When I go to the Device Manager, the 3 not working are listed as: Unknown Device.
- I've tried updating Driver Software for all 3 and it states: "Windows was unable to install your Unknown Device. Windows could not find driver software for your device. If you know the manufacturer...

When I go to the Universal Serial Bus Controllers:
I have uninstalled the drivers and restarted and still nothing!

I bought a USB 2.0 Hub to see if that would connect and nothing. It installed the driver and sits in the same place as the USB's. Not recognized and not working.

Can someone PLEASE give me an updated fix for this?!
Thanks!

Windows 7
HP Pavilion dv7

 

[bjornl]

This sounds like another case of registry hell caused by CCleaner (or one of those like it that pretend to be able to clean up your registry).
If you ran one of those and happened to save your old registry, you might try to restore it.

First make sure that the devices work. Test them on another system. They probably will work.
If you google your PC model and USB driver you will find some.
If those fail (and there is a fair chance they will) you can try a restore point.
If the restore point fails, it is time to re-install.

 

[alexowens]

Thanks for your suggestions. I've tried all of them.
When you mention re-install, what are you referring to?
Thanks.

This sounds like another case of registry hell caused by CCleaner (or one of those like it that pretend to be able to clean up your registry).
If you ran one of those and happened to save your old registry, you might try to restore it.

First make sure that the devices work. Test them on another system. They probably will work.
If you google your PC model and USB driver you will find some.
If those fail (and there is a fair chance they will) you can try a restore point.
If the restore point fails, it is time to re-install.

 

[bjornl]

Thanks for your suggestions. I've tried all of them.
When you mention re-install, what are you referring to?
Thanks.

Assuming you did test and verify that the drives, hub and so forth work on another PC.
The simplest (all things considered) method of getting USB ports to work is to use the recovery media which came with your PC (or it might be located on a recovery partition).
Before you try this it is super important to know that this will erase your C:\ hard drive all data on it. Some "factory default" recovery/restores will also hit your D:\ partition (but most will not). I can not recall how HP does it since I have't done it to an HP in a while. So I strongly recommend you backup your data first. The simplest way would be to get a CLOUD space to backup to. ADrive.com has low cost option; they used to be (might still be) the largest free offering. If you have a lot of data a better way would be to open the case and add a 2nd HD to backup to.

 

[alexowens]

Aw man! That is terrifying.The external hard drive won't back up either, most likely for the same issues.
This is so ridiculous as this seems to have been an issue for years with no fix.
Thanks for your suggestions. Just stinks!
🙁

Thanks for your suggestions. I've tried all of them.
When you mention re-install, what are you referring to?
Thanks.

Assuming you did test and verify that the drives, hub and so forth work on another PC.
The simplest (all things considered) method of getting USB ports to work is to use the recovery media which came with your PC (or it might be located on a recovery partition).
Before you try this it is super important to know that this will erase your C:\ hard drive all data on it. Some "factory default" recovery/restores will also hit your D:\ partition (but most will not). I can not recall how HP does it since I have't done it to an HP in a while. So I strongly recommend you backup your data first. The simplest way would be to get a CLOUD space to backup to. ADrive.com has low cost option; they used to be (might still be) the largest free offering. If you have a lot of data a better way would be to open the case and add a 2nd HD to backup to.

 

[alexowens]

After 2 full weeks of attempts, I fixed this!

Found this random post somewhere where i did this:

- create a folder called: usbdriver and put it in c.
- went into the windows folder and went to the inf folder.
- copied ALL the data and pasted it into the usbdriver folder that was created.
- inserted the zip drives and instead of updating the driver via windows, pointed it to the usbdriver folder.
- boom, they all work now.