Please help - USB Multidrive wont't be detected + +

Hei.
I'm a student in desperate need of help.
My computer is a Lenovo X61 with vista business (*yak*).
Previously my computer worked fine, but one unfortunate day came the time for (yet another) windows "update".

Since this, my blue "ThinkVantage" button hasn't been working.
And when I one day had need of my "Lenovo USB 2.0 Super Multi-Burner Drive with LightScribe" (what a name..); it just wouldn't work.
Opening "my computer", I see no D: !

The lenovo support is crap. When one at last comes to the unit and driver page, download it, run it..
crap. It says it can't update because it cannot detect a drive, geeh go figure, that's the reason I wanted the drivers!

I've searched around the web, but to no avail.

ie. there are no "upperfilters" or "lowerfilters" in the registry to be deleted.

Not sure if I can see the drive in my BIOS, as it's a usb drive, but.. I am able to chose to boot from it - so I reckon that means it is detected.

Please someone, help me.

 

Have you tried it on a different computer? Always gotta rule out its not the drive itself.

 

Well, if you can boot from it then the problem must be Windows and not the burner.

I don't think the burner needs special driver. Plug it in. Does Device Manager show any unconfigured or disabled devices? If not, you can use the Add Hardware tool in the Control Panel to force Windows to look for the burner.

John

 

Yes, rule of exclusion is good.
The answer is - it does work on a different computer, no problem there.

To Jon:
"Add Hardware" doesn't detect any new hardware connected, and I "choosing manually" shows only blank..

Device Manager shows the following faulty devices (with ! mark)
- SCSI/RAID Controller (under storagecontrollers .. dunno actually what the term is in English, it's the thing between IEEE and sound/video.. )
- Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #2


When I tried something I found browsing another forum -uninstalling the second IDE controller and restart- it "worked" .. windows installed drivers, but to my knowledge, the wrong ones. I ended up with another IDE thingy. Second time doing so, I now have an "ATA Channel 1".

 

So does this mean it is fixed, or just that you had a different problem with the configuration of the IDE channels?

Uninstalling the IDE channels then redetecting the hardware is the normal fix for an optical drive that is stuck in PIO mode, but I thought your burner was USB.

John

 

Pardon the extra confusion.

No, I tried it, but it didn't help me.

And yes, it is a usb drive..

 

Does the ODD work if you plug it into another computer?

Is is possible to manually install the driver by right-clicking on the .inf file in the driver package and selecting install? I don't recall needing a special driver for USB ODDs, but neither the notebook or the ODD are Lenovo.

John

 

Haha now you're the one having me confused.
Are you referring to the drive as ODD (what does it mean?)? If so; the "driver" is an .exe file, which as I stated earlier, does nothing unless it detects a drive.

Both the computer and the drive are Lenovo.

 

ODD = optical disk drive. I was wondering if you can test it with another computer, or is it specific to Lenovo notebooks?

The driver package usually contains a file with a name ending in .inf. Sometimes you can manually force this to install - it effectively puts the driver details into the Windows database.

John

 

As said, it did work with another computer (and for the record, it was a HP).
The only think I can download from lenovo's pages is something of a "multimedia suite" for the drive.. ie. not really a driver packagge at all.
I assume they assume the drive works wonders.. plug and play innit, so no need for drivers.

 

I'm short of more suggestions. It looks to be a driver problem but, unless you can see the device which has a problem, it is difficult to try using a different driver.

John

 

Does it show up device manger? under cdroms

 

Get the latest chipset drivers for your computer. Save them to your desktop. Open device manager and go to Universal Serial Bus controllers. Expand the tree by clicking the + sign.

Delete each instance of USB Root Hub by right clicking each one and selecting Uninstall. Reboot. Windows will redetect the bus when you reboot. When it asks for a driver point it to the chipset driver you downloaded earlier.

If Windows installs a default driver without asking for a file, wait until it's done and then run the chipset update yourself. Reboot. Try the drive.

 

..any new and fresh ideas?

 

Did you install Vista SP1? That might fix some underlying problem with Vista. Or was it SP1 which caused the problem?

If you remember when things worked OK you could try using System Restore to undo the recent updates.

John

 

Wow, can't believe I didn't have it or didn't dl it before.

SP1 cured it!

Thanks to all

(ps. I did try your method too deputy, but after deleting as many as possible - leaving some that constantly reinstalled themselves - the problem was still there)

 

Good to see that this frustrating problem has been resolved.

Thanks for updating us.

John