Toshiba Satellite - problems with SD cards, USB slots and webcam

languagenerd

Hey everyone. Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong place, but I'm hoping someone who knows their laptops will be able to help me

I have a Toshiba Satellite C650 laptop (have had it for about a year and a half) on Windows 7, which works fine most of the time. However, every so often it seems to forget it has USB and SD slots. I'll put in my SD card or connect up a USB device and absolutely nothing happens - no recognition noise, no "loading drivers", nothing appears in My Computer. The webcam (built-in) doesn't work during these times either. It's just like it suddenly refuses all other hardware.

I usually have to turn it off and restart it. That sometimes fixes it but other times I just have to give up on whatever I'm doing and try it again later (which can get quite annoying if I'm trying to do something for work). It's also happened while I'm mid-way through doing something and it just suddenly loses contact with whatever I have connected (meaning I can't safely remove it cause it doesn't know it's there).

This is becoming more and more frequent, but I don't really have time (or money!) to send it off for fixing. Does anyone have any idea why it does this or how I can remedy it? Thanks

Jarren

Back up your files,reinstall Windows.
It should fix the problem.

languagenerd

Thanks for the reply! So you think it's a software problem rather than a hardware one?

I'll have to get an external hard-drive to back stuff up but I'll give it a go.