XP USB Device Conflicts

[jen]

Hi

A friend has an 2006 Dell pc. She is having some problems with the usb ports. When she plugs in her flash key the device is not recocnized and does not show up in my computer.

We have completed several virus scans etc and all drives are clean. We have also tested the flash key in another pc and works perfectly.

To isolate the problem, we have tried several other usb devices and some are recognized but most are not. However, If I plug out all other usb devices, and then insert the key, it is recocnized. I think the problem relates to drive letter assignment for new usb devices.

I have checked in
Administrate Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management and the key is not listed as a drive.
There are several drives listed A to K. When a mobile phone is plugged it registers on drive J. The flash key (with all other devices plugged out) also registers on drive J.

Question

I think the resolution is to force some other device to register on another drive letter but not sure which one to change or to force the key to register on drive L.

Another question

If I delete the Universal serial bus contollers in device manager, will they reinstall on reboot. There appears to be no XP installation disks.

The pc also seems to be hanging periodically, so I think there may be some underlying OS corruption although this does not appear to be too significant at this time.

Any advise would be gratefully accepted.


Regards


Jen

 

[donkey42]

I have checked in
Administrate Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management and the key is not listed as a drive.
There are several drives listed A to K. When a mobile phone is plugged it registers on drive J. The flash key (with all other devices plugged out) also registers on drive J.

i think you restrict the drive letters assigned to device by setting the last drive letter, this will only allow XP to assign a drive letter which is not used (but, i now use linux & my memory of XP is not good)

If I delete the Universal serial bus contollers in device manager, will they reinstall on reboot.

yes all hardware connected to a system is automatically detected by XP when it is booted

The pc also seems to be hanging periodically, so I think there may be some underlying OS corruption although this does not appear to be too significant at this time.

have you thought of doing a clean reinstall or using the recovery console & is there any errors in the event log ?

 

[zxivate]

I have the same problem but if I shutdown my computer and then put the flashdrive or external hdd in and then boot it up, it works fine. Kind of weird I think