Hello.

I am having a crazy problem, and from reading elsewhere online, a lot of other people have had this problem also. Unfortunately everything I have read to solve this has not helped at all. Here is my issue:

About a week ago my computer stopped recognizing one of my external harddrives and my ipod. When i plug them in, a little icon shows up in the task bar. When clicked it brings up a list of all the USB devices. The one I just plugged in will show as unknown device and say that there are no drivers installed for this device. I have two different external drives connected to this computer. One recognizes all of the time. I also am using a Wireless adapter that runs through USB and it is never not recognized. And the other one used to. But now its a case of sometimes. and sometimes not. And about a week ago that beame the same for my ipod. I also have an ibook that i tested out these devices on to see if they would connect. they all connect just fine. So I am thinking that it has to be a system issue. Here is what I have tried to this point.

- The 5 r's for the ipod (resetting, rebooting, etc) nothing changes.
- tried updating the registry files for itunes+ipod by doing the appleitunes.bat fix. it did not work.
- virus scan and spyware scans.
- I have reformatted my pc
- also reformatted my Ipod
- have tried different ports for all devices.
- went into device manager. and uninstalled my USB devices. Rebooted and let Windows reinstall them..

With the last thing I tried. After the reboot, I plugged my Ipod in and it was immediately recognized. I had tried this step before, and it recognized my Ipod and said that it was corrupted and needed to be reformatted. But I do not understand why it would say that when it says nothing of the sort when it is hooked up to my ibook. and it works just fine when not plugged up to the pc or mac. So i reformatted my Ipod. That was successful. It showed up in Itunes for a couple of minutes, and then the Ipod screen came on and was not showing the do not disconnect sign anymore. It was still showing up in MyComputer and in Itunes though. But when i tried to transfer anything it would not go. The same with the one external drive. It would show up in MyComputer for a couple of minutes, and then it would disappear. So after these two devices disappeared after a couple minutes. I unplugged the Ipod and reconnected it. It again showed up as an Unknown device. Same with the hard drive. But my main external drive never fails to show. And never disappeared

I am really stuck on this, and have tried everything that I know to do. Someone please help me get this fixed!!

My pc is a Sony Vaio desktop Model VGC-RB53
I am running Windows XP Pro SP2

If theres more info you need to know, just let me know and I will post it. My PC is pretty bare since the reformat. Ive been waiting to reinstall a lot fo my stuff in case I have to format again. Or get a new OS.


If there is a progam I need to download to post logs or anything of that nature, let me know so I can download it and post that info for you.

Thanks!!

Hello and welcome to PC Help Forum.


Here scroll to bottom of page and download the chipset driver package it contains your USB drivers.

Then go to device manager and update drivers from there.

Sony eSupport - VGC-RB53X - Software Updates & Drivers

This link contains ALL your driver downloads and updates.

Sony eSupport - VGC-RB53X - Software Updates & Drivers

Please remeber downloading and running the driver updates does not mean they are automaticaly installed,please use device manager.

hey. thanks for the reply.

i just installed all of those updates. i rebooted my pc. upon reboot, my main external drive was recognized. i turned on my 2nd one and it still showed up as an unknown device. i plugged my ipod in, and it was not even showing up as being connected, charging, etc. so unhooked the external drive that was working, and tried the ipod in that port. it immediately recognized and brought up itunes. so i rehooked my external drive into a different port. as soon as i did this my ipod screen came on and was on the menu screen. and no longer on the do not disconnect that shows up when the ipod is running. it was still showing in itunes though. so i ejected it, unplugged the cable from the ipod and then reattached it to see if it would recognize, and it came up as an unknown device again. when i goto device manager and click on these unknown devices and say update driver. it says that no better drivers could be found. but when the first notification pop ups that its an unknown device and you click on that..it says that no drivers are installed for this device. but both are plug and play and work fine on any pc i have tried them on.

also..

i ran my computer in safe mode after this unsuccesful attempt to connect those devices. went into device manager again and uninstalled all of the usb's. and rebooted. upon starting back up. my main hard drive was recognized as well as the ipod..but about 30 seconds after the ipod connected it disappeared again.

sorry for so many posts.

but while i was waiting i decided to try one more thing. just to see if maybe some of my usb ports were bad. and that when something would connect on one and i would connect something else the previously connected device would fail.

i forgot i had a 4 port usb hub. so i hooked thgat up and plugged it in. at first it wasnt being recognized. so i plugged it into the port that my main external drive goes thorugh. and it recognized. i then hooked up my ipod and both of my externals through the hub and they all recognized.

just to make sure they would recognize again i rebooted. and they are still going good.

so i guess maybe all of this aggravation was due to bad usb ports???

Hi,it could be a bad USB port just keep and eye on the others though.

You could do this?

go to device manager and go to USB devcies click it open.

Right click on USB host controller first.

Then do this in turn for each device listed.

right click and go to update driver.

Choose install from a specific location.

Then check search fore these drivers in this location.

Uncheck Flppy/CD.

Check include these locations in this search.

Type in box C:\WINDOWS\system32

click next.

Or try dont search I will choose a driver to install.

Click next.

Downloading and running a driver does not mean it installs.

See if either of those works for each item in the USB list.

Surely we are not all having usb port probs at the same time!

I have usb ports on the front and back of my pc. Until recently the front ports worked. They were the ones I used as they were easiest to get to. Now the front ones do not work while the back ones do but are only recognized as usb1.1

I am also running XP Pro sp2 and update regularly (automatically), So to add just another possibility, I have 3 questions:

1. could a recent hot fix have actually caused usb port issues?
2. Is a restore point autmatically created prior to a hot fix update?
3. does going back to a restore point actually restore without the later hotfixes?

I think, while I'm waiting for a reply, I will go back a week and try a restore. I can't go too far back as I also changed OS recently.

thanks.