# Solved: Unrecognized USB Storage Devices



## trelph (Nov 28, 2007)

A friend of mine asked me to fix her Toshiba Satellite A105 laptop. "What's wrong with it?" I asked. "It's broken," she said. 

So I boot it up into XP Media Center SP2 without any problems and plug in the 2GB Kingston DataTraveler that has all my Windows System utils. I'm met with an error.



> *USB Device Not Recognized*
> One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it. For assistance in solving this problem, click this message.


Well, that's not a very helpful. I click the message, and a window pops up showing the USB Root Hub item, where it says that the fourth USB slot is an "Unknown Device." Curiously, there are a total of 8 listed USB slots when there are only four physical female ports on the laptop. I open up the Device Manager, uninstall all drivers under the USB Controller section, and restart XP.

When it loads back up, it has the same problem.  Now, I start testing the different ports and experience some curious results. No matter which port I plug in the pen drive first, the same message pops up. However, if I quickly take it out and plug it in somewhere else, Windows occasionally "finds" the DataTraveler 2.0, but still says that there was an error installing the device and won't let me access it via My Computer. One more interesting thing: Device Manager occasionally identifies the existence of a "Generic volume" named "Kingston DataTraveler" and even shows a Removable Device drive D: in My Computer, but there's nothing in it.

Now, I'm sure there's nothing wrong with the pen drive itself, because it still works on three other Windows machines, and four other pen drives won't work on the Toshiba.

Thoroughly frustrated with Windows, I grab a Xubuntu Live disk and try to see if it would recognize it. No luck with Plug-and-Play. I try an Ubuntu Live disk. No luck. I try KateOS. Nope.

I'm about ready to open the thing up and poke around with the hardware connections. Should I try reinstalling Media Center first, or is there an even better alternative? I just want to be done with this.

Thanks for any help you can offer.


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Try Johnwill's USB fix:



JohnWill said:
 

> *First step, Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore. Create a restore point and name it something like "Before USB Fix". This is to bail you out if something goes wrong during the following process and makes things worse.*
> 
> Create a file with NOTEPAD containing the following lines and save it as FIX.REG
> 
> ...


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## trelph (Nov 28, 2007)

I followed the guide and uninstalled all relevant drivers. After showing the hidden devices, I found something called "Serial" flagged as not having a driver. I unistalled that device too.

After booting up the first time, Windows reinstalled all the drivers. After booting up the second time, I plugged in the pen drive and the original error popped up again.

Grr.


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Thats odd, but if it doesn't work with Linux either then I'm not sure there is much that can be done.

I guess you an see if there is a USB Legacy option in the BIOS and try turning that off, or on. You can also look into BIOS updates to see if its a known issue that has been addressed. Just need the full model number off the bottom of the unit.

Aside from that USB flash drives are so cheap these days that you could just pick up another brand.


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## trelph (Nov 28, 2007)

Triple6 said:


> Thats odd, but if it doesn't work with Linux either then I'm not sure there is much that can be done.
> 
> I guess you an see if there is a USB Legacy option in the BIOS and try turning that off, or on. You can also look into BIOS updates to see if its a known issue that has been addressed. Just need the full model number off the bottom of the unit.
> 
> Aside from that USB flash drives are so cheap these days that you could just pick up another brand.


As per your suggestion, I toggled the USB Legacy option (from ENABLED to DISABLED), but nothing seemed to really change. Then I downloaded the current BIOS version (2.2), flashed the new version from inside Windows, rebooted, and...

*It worked! *

Everything seems to be working fine now, except for the computer's inability to go into Hibernate mode, but I think that's related to the video driver.

Thanks for the help, Triple6. My friend's gonna be thoroughly satisfied with the progress.


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Wow, I guess there was a known issue that Toshiba addressed. Good to hear its working. The hibernate issue could indeed be video driver related, see if Toshiba has a newer video or even chipset drivers for the laptop. But you may want to start a new thread for that if you want. Once your satisfied you can mark the thread solved by using Thread Tools at the top right above your first post to help other members out.


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