webcam doesnt exist? cannot install drivers

Just reformatted my laptop today (f3sv) and re-installed vista using the recovery dvd. When it asked for the driver cd, i refused and simply installed vista only. Upon booting into the OS, i then began to manually install all drivers.

Now in the past i remember updating my cam drivers with d-max, except now, when i go to the device manager, i dont even see my webcam listed. the d-max driver installation fails due to the absence of the imaging device.

Guidance would be appreciated.

P.S - the fools at asus had no solution to this problem.

 

Well, if you can't find it in Device Manager or Hardware Wizard (or whatever it's called), try running a Linux LiveCD such as Ubuntu and see if it detects your webcam.

 

The point being, if Linux doesn't detect it either a) it's disabled from BIOS or b) it's malfunctioning or even c) it doesn't support that particular webcam.

Do you have any device in the Device Manager that doesn't have a driver installed? (with a yellow question mark in XP, not sure about the Vista interface)

I'm asking because some pieces of hardware don't have the most intuitive names in Device Manager before the driver is installed and correctly identifies them in human-readable language.

 

The cam works fine in ubuntu.

Opening up device manager, there is a single device with a yellow exclamation symbol. Im not quite sure what the correlation is between USB2.0 and a webcam (perhaps the cam uses USB as the connection medium), but i have tried to let windows update this driver by right clicking selecting update device driver. This update fails.

Now even though the device manager is reporting a possible issue with the USB 2.0 device, all my USB ports do in fact work.

Please help, this issue is driving me insane.

 

yes, the camera is probably connected via USB. So that is probably the device need to get the driver for.

You should have a folder on your drivers CD with the webcam drivers. Try using those.