USB Storage devices giving error messages

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I have a problem with my USB ports not recognising various hard drives, an iphone and a card reader which all worked perfectly up until yesterday. When I connect any of these items I get a pop-up saying “One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognise it.” This happens with any USB port and any cable and with all my USB devices with storage. My keyboard, mouse and printer work without problem in any of the ports.

Sometimes, with a few reboots I can get a device working for a while, but then it disappears and I get the above message.

In device manager, the offending port shows up with a yellow exclamation mark and the properties state “Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43) I’ve tried uninstalling and letting Windows reinstall for only temporary cure.

I am running Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit and have made no hardware or software changes recently apart from installing the latest version of itunes. I have run a virus and malware scan which found nothing.
I did a system restore back to the weekend, as I had installed some windows updates but the problem persists.

I have tried the cures suggested to nellerose44. No joy!

I am at my wit’s end as I can’t work out whether this is a hardware or Windows problem. Any help would be much appreciated.

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Try this, Disconnect all USB devices except keyboard and mouse.
Go to: Start>Run>type DEVMGMT.MSC press OK
Scroll to the bottom to Universal Serial Bus Controllers.
Right click each one, one-at-a-time, and click Uninstall.
Reboot, which will reinstall your USB ports.
Connect your devices

Jerry

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I just tried as you suggested. Unfortunately, could not uninstall all the controllers as I lost mouse and keyboard. There is still a yellow exclamation mark in Device Manager. It now calls it a compatible USB storage device (tho’ none is connected!) and shows error “Cannot start” (Error code 10)

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Further to my previous posts, I am now getting error 10 messages with any device I plug in. Could this be a hardware problem: eg. with my motherboard or chipset? I had a look inside the case and checked the connectors visually. They look OK for what it’s worth.

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Try installing the latest chipset drivers for your motherboard.

Jerry

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stephneedham, I had a very similar problem read here: http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread//130187-USB-drivers-corrupt-and-unresponsive?highlight=stopped+working
regards Peter

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Thanks Petrox. I worked through the suggestions on your thread. Unfortunately, I still cannot get any of my USB drives working. I’m looking for chipset drivers, although, from memory, I never installed any in the first place.

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Just looking at the connectors may not be enough. I would power down, disconnected the power cord, then unplug and replug all connectors. Clean out any accumulated crud. Then try again. You should then use an app such as SIW to see what information can be gathered about the motherboard and chipset to allow you to find the manufacturer to get new drivers from their sites. The original drivers would have been installed automatically when the OS was installed.

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I did as you suggested and unplugged and replugged all the connectors. I have found some chipset drivers but I’m a little wary of installing them as I don’t want to further trash my system. The drivers I found only reference up to Windows Vista and I’m not techy enough to know whether they will be OK. I do have a backup image of my system from a month ago BUT it’s on a USB drive! I’m wondering about doing a fresh install of Windows and starting from scratch.

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stephneedham, no need to do it from scratch perhaps. Do a win 7 repair install. With win 7 running insert the win 7 DVD in your DVD/CD drive and do a” upgrade ” install. This is the same as a repair install. All your programs will remain in place and working. That is what I had to do to fix my problem. Regards Peter

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If you create a System Restore point before installing the drivers, you can always return to the same state if the drivers don’t work by doing a System Restore.

Jerry

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Right. This is what I’ve done. I did a backup image of Windows and installed the new drivers. Everything went Ok, BUT the problems still persisted, even after I ran USBDeview again and uninstalled everything I could. I then took the bull by the horns and did a fresh install of Windows. Guess what? Still cannot connect USB storage devices. I then decided to disconnect the front USB ports; mainly for superstitious reasons, as they were where the problems started, last week. I am now only connecting to the ports on the back. Still, I can connect my mouse, keyboard and printer to any of these ports and they work perfectly, but none of my storage devices do. I am in absolute despair.

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I can connect my mouse, keyboard and printer to any of these ports and they work perfectly, but none of my storage devices do. I am in absolute despair.

Sounds like it might be a power problem. The devices you can connect do not draw as much power as USB Harddrives. How old are the HDs? Some of the early drives came with a cord that would plug into 2 usb ports to get extra power. You may have a loose wire in the USB setup that is not providing full power to the devices. Unfortunately, this will be very difficult to find.

Good Luck.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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I don’t think power is the problem, as two of my drives have separate power connections to the mains.

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I would buy a PCI or PCI Express USB adapter card that adds USB ports.

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I had the similar problem on my band new Win7 64-bit PC before. It won’t recognize the devices I connected to the USB ports. Those devices could be connected to my good old XP without any problem. Those devices included USB flash drive, Canon T1i Camera, Canon HD camcorder…you name it. I was frustrated by not finding any solution to this problem.

Finally, I searched the internet for the possible most updated 64-bit driver for the camcorder and found someone had the same problem as mine. He said the problem was caused by the hardware, not the software or Win7.

The front USB ports on his desktop don’t provide enough power for long USB cable connection. If he connected all these “trouble” devices to the rear USB ports, Win7 would recognize them with no problem.

I followed his suggestion and solved the problem.

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I had an identical situation with my system. New drivers, etc. had no effect.
Try shutting down your system and then completely remove AC power by shutting off the power supply switch or disconnecting the AC from the wall plug for 15-20 seconds.
This worked believe it or not.
Apparently the USB port was in a state of electronic limbo after I unplugged a flash drive sometime earlier without going thru the proper software disconnect procedure.
Problem totally disappeared and has not returned after 4-5 weeks.
Good Luck!

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