| Generic USB drives not working |
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My USB 2.0 256 MB flash drive (a no-name generic flash drive) has been working great in the past, through directly plugging the drive into a USB port on the computer. However, I recently purchased a non-powered 4-port USB 2.0 hub. When the hub was connected to the computer, Windows seemed to correctly identify and install the hub. I then plugged my USB flash drive into the hub and a message appeared on screen saying ‘Unknown Device’. So I then attached a USB printer to the hub and sent a print job, which printed half of the document and then stopped! However, the printer prints correctly when I connect the printer directly to a USB port on the computer. However, if I try to connect the flash drive directly to a USB port (I have tried all the available ports) it is no longer recognised correctly, and now displays the same ‘Unknown Device’ message. The same result occurs when connecting another generic brand flash drive directly to the USB port on the computer. Uninstalling and letting the system reinstall all the USB devices in the Device Manager does not fix the problem. The flash drive works fine on my work computer and daughter’s laptop, so it doesn’t appear to be faulty. Interestingly, my daughter has an IBM USB 2.0 flash drive which works fine on the computer, and all other USB devices (e.g. the USB printer) work fine. So, it seems the computer just won’t recognise any generic USB 2.0 flash drives. The computer is a Pentium 4 with Windows XP Home Edition SP 2. First off, since both the USB flash drive and your printer do not work correctly when attached to the USB 2.0 hub, it seems there is something wrong with this device. So, I would recommend that you do not continue to use the hub (since it could potentially damage devices connected to the hub) and take it back for a refund. Since the USB Flash drive works correctly on another machine and the problem also occurs with other generic USB flash drives, we should be able to rule-out the possibility the drive was damaged by the faulty USB hub. As the USB flash drive no longer works correctly after connecting the flash drive through the USB hub, we should try to completely uninstall the device and then allow Windows to reinstall the device. There is no need to install any drivers for USB flash drives in Windows XP, as the drivers are included with Windows (the driver CD which comes with many flash drives are drivers for older versions of Windows, such as Windows 98). To uninstall the device, plug the USB thumb drive into a spare USB port on your computer so the device is recognised and will likely be installed as an ‘Unknown Device’. Go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Control Panel’ and open the ‘System’ control panel (you may need to first click the ‘Performance and Maintenance’ category). In the window that appears, click the ‘Hardware’ tab and the ‘Device Manager’ button. Find the ‘Unknown Device’ and then right-click on the entry and select ‘Uninstall’ or ‘Remove’. Once the device is removed, disconnect the USB thumb drive and restart Windows. When Windows restarts, reconnect the USB thumb drive (directly to a USB port on the computer) and check whether the drive is correctly recognised. Should the issue continue, try the age-old trick of running the System File Checker in case any Windows files have become corrupt or are missing. While I suggest this method quite frequently, I have found running the SFC can solve a lot of problems with Windows XP. Go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Run’ and type ‘sfc /scannow’ (without the quotes) and click OK to begin running the SFC utility. You may need to have your Windows XP CD handy, if the Windows files have not been locally cached to your hard drive (which is the case on most brand name computers). I would welcome feedback from other readers who have experienced and solved any similar problems. |