USB Port doesn't recognise portable drives

I have a dual-boot XP and Vista system - the Vista side is fine, and the XP side was fine up until a couple of weeks ago, when the USB ports started acting up. When I insert a USB device (flash drive, digital camera, MP3 player), the computer makes the "ba-doink" sound to say something's been plugged in, but autorun doesn't happen, and the device only appears in Explorer as "Removable drive", not the for instance "USB_DISK" which is what my USB pen drive is called. If I click on the "Removable Drive" in Explorer, a message pops up saying "The disk in drive is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?" If I click on the "Safely remove hardware" icon, the flash drive shows up correctly as a "USB Mass Storage Device - Silicon Power USB Device" and can be stopped and removed from there. If I boot into Vista, I don't have any problems at all - the music players, digital camera and flash drives are all detected correctly, and everything works as it should. I've checked Device Manager, and everything looks fine there - no exclamation marks, and no obvious problems. Nothing shows up in Event Viewer either. Edit: There is a USB port in the card reader and two more USB ports on the front of the computer - they all exhibit this behaviour in XP, and not in Vista Any clues/assistance/help would be gratefully received. Thanks in anticipation.

Hi and welcome to the WTT forums. Sorry to hear of the problems with your machine. A good first starting point is to use a System Restore Point made just before the problem started. Then see how you go. Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>System Restore and follow on screen directions. Regards paws

Could be a registry entry that has become corrupt Google it and check the values versus yours.

Thanks for the replies - unfortunately, System Restore isn't an option because it's been behaving like this for afew weeks, and I really don't want to System Restore back that far. PaPa-Smurf, what registry keys would I be looking for? Ones for USB drives in general, or more specific ones?

Hi

unfortunately, System Restore isn't an option because it's been behaving like this for afew weeks, and I really don't want to System Restore back that far

This is obviously a matter of personal choice but don't forget that System Restore was designed not to interfere with your data…….

Regards
paws

Thanks for the replies - unfortunately, System Restore isn't an option because it's been behaving like this for afew weeks, and I really don't want to System Restore back that far.

PaPa-Smurf, what registry keys would I be looking for? Ones for USB drives in general, or more specific ones?

Hey i did a bit of checking
Check these out they might not help but it should give you a better idea of what to look for
hope this helps sorry i'm a bit busy atm.
but see what you can find

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…kb;en-us;817900
http://ntcompatible.com/Desperately_need_h…zed_t32356.html

Korpse - are you still having this issue? I am having the exact same issue except I am having it on Vista. (my machine is not a dual boot env like yours) It suddenly started happening last week. I first noticed it with my iPod, and initially debugged it as an iTunes/iPod issue but have since hit the same problem with my SanDisk drive and a second iPod I tested. All 3 devices work fine on my work PC (brought them into test) I have not yet tested the registry change mentioned in the above links. I have tried plugging the devices into all 6 ports with the same issue. I have also tried reinstalling various USB drivers with no luck.

I'm also having the same problem with my pendrives particularly the 1 GB and 2 GB, the 512 MB works just fine with my pc. It just shows that they are removable drives but doesn't show the name of the pendrive and when I try to access them, the contents is empty though there is something in it. The 1 GB and 2 GB pendrives works just fine on other desktops except mine.

Whats interesting is that I brought a Western Digital external HDD home from work to backup my system (considering a restore) and that worked fine. So its not all drives connected to the USB ports - but 3 different ipods and a SanDisk all of which work on other PCs and worked on mine until last week. Will keep digging.

Strangely enough, no I'm not having this problem any more. A couple of days ago it just fixed itself, don't ask me how or why. But now I can stick a USB flash drive into any USB port on the front of the computer and it's all OK again. I hadn't actually got around to trying any of the fixes linked here, but was going to try the registry one first (seemed like the least intrusive thing to do).

After a few nights battling with it I folded last night and did a Factory restore of my Dell laptop. Thankfully the problem was resolved as I was becoming a little worried it was a motherboard problem. My gut instinct here is that it might have been caused by installing a HP wireless 3/1 printer last week. I will be reinstalling that soon and, if the problem reoccurs, I will update the thread. Oh, and I tried the registry entry change before restoring but it did not solve my issue.

After a few nights battling with it I folded last night and did a Factory restore of my Dell laptop. Thankfully the problem was resolved as I was becoming a little worried it was a motherboard problem.

not if the device "starts", this is a registry problem, and is usually caused by people disconnecting their devices WHILE windows is shutting-down.

Either unplugg it before initiating shut-down, or let it finish before removing it.

Tallon41