[creatureofdarkness]

When I tried to plug in and use my Cruzer mini flash drive (that still works on a different computer) it would not function at all, no light lit up on the flash drive itself, and my computer froze right then and there. I've gone through this several times to verify that's what's doing it, and I'm pretty sure it is. I've needed to do a soft reboot, as even Ctrl-Alt-Delete won't even do anything. Also, I have a Palm Desktop program installed, and it will not initialize either - I get the error message that the To Do database fails to load.
I've uninstalled and reinstalled the Palm Software, uninstalled and reinstalled the USB devices through the device manager, and tried to update their drivers, but no better update has been found. My Lexmark X83 USB does work, but none of the other USB ports will accept the flash drive without locking everything.
Any help will be most apprciated! Thanks
{Xp home, SP 2; four USB 1 ports that came with the machine; 4 additional USB 2s added subsquently, all of which were workingi fine this morning. No new software or hardware installed since...}

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USB ports going unusable is a big problem with XP. This is often associated with uninstalling optical drive burning software.

You may be faced with doing a data backup and reinstalling XP since I have not come across a clear solution.

A number of people have reported that intalling a PCI USB add-on card gives them usable ports.

SYBA $13 SYBA PCI USB 2.0 4+1 port controller card Model SD-V2-5U

SYBA $13 SYBA PCI USB 2.0 4+1 shared port controller card Model SD-VIA-5U

At least these adapters are inexpensive, but they won't give you the convenience of having a port on the front of your system.

[WinCrazy]

USB ports going unusable is a big problem with XP. This is often associated with uninstalling optical drive burning software.

You may be faced with doing a data backup and reinstalling XP since I have not come across a clear solution.

A number of people have reported that intalling a PCI USB add-on card gives them usable ports.

SYBA $13 SYBA PCI USB 2.0 4+1 port controller card Model SD-V2-5U

SYBA $13 SYBA PCI USB 2.0 4+1 shared port controller card Model SD-VIA-5U

At least these adapters are inexpensive, but they won't give you the convenience of having a port on the front of your system.

[creatureofdarkness]

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

[wannabe1]

Hi creatureofdarkness...

Have you looked in Device Manager to see if the USB Controllers and USB hubs are correctly installed? You might also try uninstalling them from there and restarting the machine...this will sometimes bring them back online.

wannabe1

Edited by wannabe1, 29 April 2006 - 08:53 AM.

[creatureofdarkness]

As I've messed with this problem further my computer has started to lock up more and more and at random, without any apparent reference to the USB ports. So... I've just taken it in to the shop for paid service. It would lock up so much I couldn't even get to Geeks to Go for possible assistance! So this topic should be considered closed for now. Thanks for the assistance offered.