Problem with transferring pictures through USB port

Hello, A while back I had a smitfraud problem, and I think I may have gotten rid of one item I shouldn't have. I was trying to transfer some pictures from my digital camera to my computer last night through the USB port and it was as if the computer didn't even recognize it. In the past, when I would connect the camera to USB, a few seconds later I would get a pop up prompt asking what I wanted to do with the pictures, and gave a few different options. My wife and I believe that prompt was just a general Windows type program prompt. It appears that we would then generally transfer the pictures to a JASC photo editor. Now I just see that it momentarily recognizes that I've plugged something into the USB port, but then nothing else. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Jeff

The first thing I would do is disconnect all unnecessary USB devices and reboot. Then look in Device Manager and make sure there are no errors. If okay, plug in your camera (I usually try a different USB port at this time too) and see what happens. If still a problem, disconnect your device and go back into Device Manager and delete your USB device drivers and reboot. Then connect again and drivers "should" get reloaded.

Try checking your BIOS. Reboot your computer, and his the Delete key, or one of the 'F' buttons,(I believe F2) I'm not sure which it is, but mine is Delete. When you get in there go into "Integrated Peripherals", then go to "USB Controller" and if it is disabled, hit enter, and enable it. Then save and exit BIOS. I've had this problem before, and that's all it was for me To save a hassle, I would try this first, instead of going through all of that Digerati described.

Okay, I should say that we also have a set of headphones, a scanner, and a printer that are connected to USB ports in the back of the computer, and those all work fine. We have tried re-booting, to no avail, and have tried numerous USB ports, as well as, our old digital camera, and nothing seems to work. I will try these tonight when I get home to see if this might be what the issue is. Thanks, Jeff

Hi, I am sure you will have tried this already but just in case you haven't… 1 Connect your camera to your computer by USB 2 Click on My Computer 3 Have a good look for anything that could be your camera's mem card…..it might be under "removable media" 4 If you find anything like this, then double click on the drive and it will open, so you can copy your photos to wherever you want. As this will only take you a few seconds it's worth trying! Regards paws

Ok, after last night, I have figured out that it is a software-type issue. I was able to go into one of our photo editing programs and retrieve the pictures off of the camera. So it's just a matter of not getting that prompt automatically anymore, where it would pop up when we connected the camera through the USB port. Thanks for the help everyone, this probably belongs in a different spot, now that I'm fairly certain it is just a software issue. Anyone have suggestions of where this type of question should be posted? Thanks, Jeff

I would just continue on here - since it is already started - the line between hardware and software is often blurred when the purpose of the software is to make the hardware work!

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A couple more thoughts.

Drive Letter Assignments. As I am sure you are aware, when you add a storage device (hard drive, optical, memory card, cameras with built-in memory, external drives, etc.) Windows will assign a drive letter to the device. If you installed/configured your photo program to access the camera on G drive, for example, then at some point, a new drive, new partition, or memory card, was inserted, and the letters shifted, your program may be looking in the wrong place. A simple fresh install (or repair if the option is provided) of your photo program may work.

BTW, when the shift involves hard drives (including added or deleted partitions) and optical drives, this can actually cause confusion for some programs (like some Windows tools, or Office) as they lose track of where their installation files came from. This is usually easily corrected, but an annoyance just the same. "Forward thinking" planning when building a new computer and setting up HDs, getting it right the first time, pays off. And a trick I've use forever to minimize letter shift problems with opticals is immediately after the Windows install, I change the CD drive letter to "Q". I assign the DVD drive "V". So for every computer in the house (and there are currently 7), the CD is Q on every one, and the DVD is V. If I connect a memory stick, or camera, there is no letter shift.

I will note that problems with removable storage devices are very often caused by corrupt caches. To minimize cache related problems, in Windows Explorer (double click on My Computer), right click on any of the Removable Disks, then select Properties > Hardware. Highlight the removable device in question and select Properties > Policies. Then ensure the "Optimize for quick removal" radio button is ticked and then "Ok" your way back out. You still should wait a second or two before pulling the device to ensure any required "housekeeping" is complete, but then you can just safely pull the stick or other USB device out without going through the Safely Remove Hardware icon.

Note to mods - please do NOT delete but change the title of this thread - the other thread here needs to be deleted.

Thanks.

Thanks, I changed the title back. My wife or I will have to try your suggestions tonight, hopefully this will work. I'm just pleased that we can still get the pictures transferred now, as I was worried about there being a bigger problem with either the computer or the camera.

Thanks for your assistance, it still doesn't seem to be doing anything though. Perhaps my brain is just fried due to tax season. I guess we can at least transfer the pictures now, just not as easily as it had been. Thanks again, Jeff

Hmm, I wish I had more suggestions. Did you uninstall and reinstall the photo program? Just reinstalling is no good - you have to uninstall first.

I had uninstalled and reinstalled the program PictureProject. A while ago I was messing around with this a bit more. Here's what I got: Plug in the camera, computer creates Removable Disk (H:) Right-clicked on Removable Disk (H:) Clicked on the AutoPlay tab Under "select content type" it has Music files Tried to change that to Pictures, and then "prompt me each time to choose an action" or under the select an action I chose "view pictures on removable media (using Jasc Paint Shop Photo Album)" Click apply, and then close the removable drive properties Go back into the properties, and it's switched back to Music files again Went to the hardware tab and see that among others my Nikon camera is listed and for its location it is Location 0 Just not sure what else to do. I can transfer into the Jasc photo editor now, which we both prefer, just don't get that automatic prompt. I hope I've described that prompt good enough that you know what I'm referring to. Perhaps I need to uninstall other photo editing programs that we have? Thanks again, Jeff

Anything I would suggest, without having this PC in front of me on my bench, would be a guess. Certainly, I would uninstall any device you no longer use. On the page where you said music files under AutoPlay, that just means if it finds a music file, it will use the "Action" you pick for music files. You might try changing the options to "Prompt me each time…"

Hopefully her parents will be coming up to our place soon, as her dad is pretty good with computers. He said pretty much the same thing, about just guessing at this point, until he could see it. So perhaps I'll go in do their taxes and come home to a fixed computer. Anyways, as I was driving in this morning, the only other thing I could think of was I don't believe we've tried to transfer any pictures since Christmas. At Christmas I got my wife an Ipod. Could that be causing a problem such as this?

So, how many USB devices are connected?

An IPOD is certainly another storage device, so inserting and removing the IPOD, and other devices, sure might confuse the drive lettering.

Do note that although in theory, you can have many USB devices, in practice, it does not always work that way. One way to minimize issues (I don't know if this is documented anywhere, but I have found this works though personal experiences similar to yours) is to use a self-powered USB Hub, such as this. This ensures your USB devices are not pulling power from the computer's USB port, but from the hub's power source.

If it were me, I would uninstall everything for that camera, run CCleaner's Registry cleaner (be sure to follow the prompts to backup the Registry before making changes to it). It is often necessary to scan for issues 2 or 3 times until it reports, "No issues were found". Then reboot and start the camera program installation all over, as per the camera software installation instructions.