USB device not recognized in Windows?

[bigk181]

Whenever I turn on my computer, I got a pop-up window on the bottom right of the screen that says, "USB Device Not Recognized". If I close the window or it disappears on it's own, it always comes back immediately and it keeps making a sound you hear when a USB device is connected. If I click on the pop-up window, it will open another window that has an Unknown USB Device. I went to Device Manager and I tried to disable the Unknown USB Device but the drop-down menu keeps jumping around. When I was finally able to select the Unknown USB Device and open a menu, it said that the device is waiting for a safe shut off and I should reconnect the device. I reconnected every USB device I have and then did a safe shut off whenever possible and the problem persists. This is really annoying. How can I fix this?

USB Problem 1.jpg

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Now my external hard drive won't show up in My Computer when I turn it on. It makes me wonder if this is what's causing the problem.

[volksjager]

perhaps bad usb port or header?
are you using the ports in the rear that are directly on the motherboard?
or the ones on the front that are connected by a header?

[bigk181]

The external hard drive is plugged into a USB card in the back of the computer. I tried it on all the USB ports on the card, the motherboard, and on the front and it didn't work on any of them. Other USB devices work just fine. I check them all. The external hd is the only one that's not working anymore.

I really need help with this. I don't want to have to replace my external hard drive and lose everything. I have a lot on my external HD.

[volksjager]

sure sound like the drive is bad.
hard drives have a relatively short life span.
never use a hard drive as a sole backup

[bigk181]

Well, when you have as much stuff backed up as I do, an external hard drive is the only option. I even have stuff on there that's only on the external hard drive. I'm going to look into external hard drive recovery so that I can get my data. Thanks.

[volksjager]

if you are going to use only hard drives as a backup - then go with multiple redundant drives.

blu-ray disks may be a good way to go too - each can hold 25gb

try the drive on a different computer just to double check it isnt a driver issue.

[bigk181]

I don't have a lot of money, so having multiple drives is not really an option. I've been wanting a blu-ray burner for my computer for a while but I can't afford it.

I don't have another computer to check it on but I did check it on my PS3 and it doesn't show up. I ran ZoneAlarm Security Suite, Spybot, SUPERAntiSpyware, and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware just to see if it was a virus or spyware problem but it didn't fix the problem. I even used Driver Detective and it says that the driver is out of date but it doesn't give me a driver for it.

[volksjager]

i doubt is is malware
how old is the drive and what brand is the drive itself?

like i said hard drives have a finite lifespan - some are better than others
Seagate and Hitachi i have had good luck with.
Western Digital and Samsung not so much
Blu-Ray burners have come down in price
sometime Newegg has them on sale too.
if you troll Craigslist you can usually pick up external Hard drives on the cheap

[bigk181]

It is a Western Digital 2 TB hard drive. I've always had luck with Western Digital.

I was going to replace my printer with my Mom's printer because she got a new one but it won't turn on. I setup my printer again and I'm getting this same USB problem with the printer now. It worked just fine before.

[Steve(MS)]

Did you run the setup disc for the other printer?
Recently, I bought an old XP machine for my aunt and had the problem with the XP not recognizing my 500 gb external drive.
Once I was able to transfer files off it and then it showed the message you were getting.
Same thing happened while I was running XP in a VM.

Supposing your external did work correctly at one time in the past, it is odd that now it won't recognize it.

It sounds like a driver problem to me but that is a just a guess.
May be time to visit microsoft for an answer or do some queries on search engine.

[bigk181]

I agree with you. I think this is a driver problem but I haven't been able to fix it. I got my printer to turn on but now it won't print. It worked fine before, so I don't know why it's not working now. My main concern right now is the external hard drive.

I'm using Windows 7 and it worked fine on that OS for quite a while. I will have to do some research on the Microsoft website to see if I can find an answer. I didn't' think about doing that before.

[volksjager]

an external USB hard drive should be play and play in Windows 7

try the external hard drive on your moms pc.

[Steve(MS)]

You are using W7?
You shouldn't be having problems with that OS either with printers or ext. hard drives.
Of course, many printers won't work without proper driver..which comes on the installation disc.

I don't have a link but you can try microsoft"s fix it...or maybe it's called fix it for me...something like that.
Maybe click on windows update and see if anything shows up in the driver category.

Perhaps a combo of that and putting in "USB Device Not Recognized" into search engine will find the answer.

[bigk181]

I tired the fixes on the Microsoft website and I even uninstalled the drivers but I'm still having this problem. The fact that my printer is now having problems along with my external hard drive makes me think that it's a driver problem but I can't seem to fix it.

I can't get the hotfix thing to work. It says, "The update is not applicable to your computer." It says that for both versions.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2654149/en-us