PC will not recognize ANY type of external storage. PLEASE HELP!

[GuItArMaN8373]

Well this has been going on for a longggg time, but it has been getting to me so much lately, that I figured it's about time to see what the pros can tell me. First of all, I searched google and MS databases right and left for help, I tried almost everything, with no results.

Anyway, my issue seemed to happen instantly. One minute my PC could read any USB flash drive, my PSP (which acts like an external drive) and could read any SD card my multi-card reader. Then all of a sudden, or so it seemed, it all changed. Now nothing can even been recognized by my computer. My multi-card reader lights up when an SD card is in ... but the PC does not see anything.

The PC does display 4 drive letters, which correspond to each SD slot, but they all say empty even if i put a card in. My PSP will not show up anymore, and neither will any flash drive. I've made sure these devices worked on other PCs, which they did. I'm all out of hope at this point. USB ports work fine ... but my computer is having some issue with external storage devices.

Let me know what other information you guys will need to help me and I can let you know, heck i'd even be willing to do a remote desktop connect or something at this point.

I have a smartphone, when I plug it in a USB slot and sync it with microsoft's sync software, I can access everything on it, but that is it as far as external storage goes.

I never did any major updates when this problem started, and I'm using XP home, lastest updates.

Any and all help will be much appreciated. If I posted this in the wrong forum I'm sorry.

Thanks!

- Chris

[SuperMiguel]

open teh computer in safe mode, open device manager (start > right click my computer > properties > hardware >device manager), click on the "+" next to Universal Serial Bus Controller (most of the time the last one in the list), then right click on all the USB root hubs and click uninstall, do this for all of them.. then reboot and test..

Note: while doing this if you are using a usb mouse/keyboard they may become unstable since you are deleting the drivers for it.. try to use a ps/2 mouse if possible...

[King107s]

+1 for supermiguel's suggestion

Have you checked to make sure your external storage device is working on a different computer? I know this may sound insulting but these are the questions you have to ask.

You may have a problem with the voltage being supplied by your USB hub that is causing a fault when more demanding devices are connected. Check your PSU's +5V rail which supplies the power for USB.

Also check for any IRQ conflicts with your external device and the rest of the system.

Good luck

[TechJunky]

Do a screen shot of Disk Manager when you have a USB device plugged in.

Sometimes the drive letter mapping gets screwed up. Simply renaming the usb drive letter to something like Z: will solve your problem. This is if your usb ports are actually working. I am betting this is the issue. I see it here all the time in our Domain environment where you have mapped drives.

[GuItArMaN8373]

I will do the following today, thanks. And yes, all the devices DO work on all my other computers ... I believe I mentioned that in my original post, sorry if I did not. I'll post back and let you know what my results were, thanks.

[GuItArMaN8373]

Weird ... after restarting and going into safe mode ... everything worked great all storage devices showed up when connected. Even weirder was when I restarted and logged back on as usual, it still worked. I did not have to do a thing at all to fix it. Is it possible that I have some setting somewhere for those types of devices to time out and not show up if my computer has been running for a long period of time? I leave my PC running, I just turn the monitors off when I'm not using it. I did not have to do a thing at all to fix it.