USB Ports not working

seabee

I had some trouble with my PC, now when I plug my USB Flash Drive/Pen Drive (call it what you will) in, the PC doesn't recognise it. I tried it in another PC and it works fine. Any ideas what might be wrong?

Civilian_Target

Do other things work in the USB on this computer (eg. a digital camera)

If so, it's almost certainly a power issue: your computer isn't able to provide enough power to the memory stick. If you're using a USB hub, remove it, and plug straight into the USB on your motherboard, with no other unnecessary USB devices connected, see if it works.

Khannie

More info please:

self build?
front usb panel?
how old is the machine?
etc...

seabee

To answer your questions:
the PC is a few years old.
the ports are in the rear,
I've only tried inserting the "pen drive"

irlrobins

Try this:

Start->settings->control panel->system

Click on hardware then on device manager. Remove everything under Universial Serial Bus Controllers and then restart. Try your drive then.

Khannie

Is this the first thing you've tried in the USB port? Are you running windows95 by any chance?

A pen drive should work ok. Try irlrobins suggestion though. Defo worthwhile. If neither work, try borrowing a usb mouse and see if that works. If it does, it's probably a power issue (though this would surprise me).

roamer

AFAIK hotplugging with windows wasn't fully incorporated until one of the service packs that came with Windows 2000.

What OS are you running?

seabee

Windows ME
I'll try that suggestion tomorrow and let yee know what happens. Thanks

Capt'n Midnight

NT has no USB support ( there are rare drivers for specific device but never seen one)

95 osr2/98/98se all require device specific drivers and some manufacturers don't release drivers for older OS's. Pity because OAK released generic drivers for CD's for DOS. It would be nice if someone did for USB too.

SouperComputer

Pity because OAK released generic drivers for CD's for DOS. It would be nice if someone did for USB too.

yea, would be handy alright.


Anyhoooo,

ME has support for most flash chipsets, but has been known to mess up every now and then. Do you know who made the drive? It might need ME drivers, some of em do.

seabee

irlrobins wrote:

...... Universial Serial Bus Controllers....

this "option" isn't showing up on the screen....think i might have bigger problems....

Khannie

Check your bios to see if they're disabled. If not, pop open the computer and make sure they're properly connected to the motherboard. If your OS isn't recognising them, then it's probably a hardware fault at some level.

seabee

Khannie wrote:

Check your bios to see if they're disabled.

Thanks Khannie, I checked the bios and 2 of the 3 USB related options were disabled (don't know how that happened?), so I enabled them and it did the trick