Win XP SP3 USB Port

[Purhonen]

Have a Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop with Windows XP Home Edition SP 3 that has four USB ports. I've tried plugging in numerous devices (flash drive, camera, printer) into the ports but nothing gets recognized. There are NO indications in the Device Manager of anything not working. Here's the kicker: I successfully ran Gibson Research Corp.'s SpinRite from a flash drive and SpinRite loads and runs BEFORE Windows loads. This tells me that the USB hardware is okay and leads me to believe the problem is with Windows XP -- can this be? I'm planning on doing a clean reinstall of Windows XP within the next few days. If anyone has an answer which would allow me to NOT reinstall I would appreciate it. Thanks, SteveP.S. The laptop is not mine; I'm doing this for a friend. I don't think he's willing to spend for an upgrade to Windows 7.

[b2cm]

Try uninstalling the USB controllers and root hubs in Device Manager and restart the computer.

[lewmur]

Have a Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop with Windows XP Home Edition SP 3 that has four USB ports. I've tried plugging in numerous devices (flash drive, camera, printer) into the ports but nothing gets recognized. There are NO indications in the Device Manager of anything not working. Here's the kicker: I successfully ran Gibson Research Corp.'s SpinRite from a flash drive and SpinRite loads and runs BEFORE Windows loads. This tells me that the USB hardware is okay and leads me to believe the problem is with Windows XP -- can this be? I'm planning on doing a clean reinstall of Windows XP within the next few days. If anyone has an answer which would allow me to NOT reinstall I would appreciate it. Thanks, SteveP.S. The laptop is not mine; I'm doing this for a friend. I don't think he's willing to spend for an upgrade to Windows 7.

My solution would be to try any Linux LiveCD and see if it detects and reads your USB devices. If so, you know the problem is with XP and not the hardware.

[ChipDoc]

It's also possible that the auto-mount feature has been disabled in XP.http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtrouble_e.html

[aldago]

Have a Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop with Windows XP Home Edition SP 3 that has four USB ports. I've tried plugging in numerous devices (flash drive, camera, printer) into the ports but nothing gets recognized. There are NO indications in the Device Manager of anything not working. Here's the kicker: I successfully ran Gibson Research Corp.'s SpinRite from a flash drive and SpinRite loads and runs BEFORE Windows loads. This tells me that the USB hardware is okay and leads me to believe the problem is with Windows XP -- can this be? I'm planning on doing a clean reinstall of Windows XP within the next few days. If anyone has an answer which would allow me to NOT reinstall I would appreciate it. Thanks, SteveP.S. The laptop is not mine; I'm doing this for a friend. I don't think he's willing to spend for an upgrade to Windows 7.

You don''t say how long you've had SP3 installed but there have been many problems with SP3 and USB ports reported in the literature (http://tinyurl.com/24nrrzq). Try uninstalling SP3 and see if that helps. There is probably no drive letter being assigned when you plug in your USB device. To check and see if this is the case plug in a Thumb Drive and go to control panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Disk Management to see whether or not the drive is detected and, if it is, whether or not it is assigned a drive letter. If the drive shows up with no drive letter you can assign one at this point and use the device.