Urgent: all USB ports not working on Vista!!

Please help me - I have a very urgent problem. My USB ports don't work. No matter what I plug in, nothing is recognized.

Under Device Manager, Universal Serial Bus Controllers: it lists a lot of Standard Universal PCI to USB Host Controllers and Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controllers. All of them have yellow exclamation marks and the device status says

"Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)

Click 'Check for solutions' to send data about this device to Microsoft and to see if there is a solution available."

I tried uninstalling all of them and rebooting my computer, but it tries to find the drivers and fails, so it doesn't work. Please help!!

 

What computer do you have??? It sounds like you do not have a driver installed...

 

Ah I forgot to mention - I have an HP Pavilion dv6500 laptop... the USB ports were all fine for about 2 months and they failed about a month ago.

Yes, it seems like some sort of driver got deleted - where could I re-download the driver??

 

I also have the 6500t and my usb ports on my laptop are fine, but my expansion base usb ports went out all of the sudden as well. They were fine and then they just quit working. I have tried multiple things with no luck.

 

Have you tried looking for drivers? Basically, my computer looks for the drivers and fails. Does anyone know where I can download them?

 

If you have Intel chipset, go download the driver for intel chipsets, if amd, Im not sure, but am assuming amd will have chipset drivers with what ever they use, its the chipset drivers that usually setup usb ports

 

Sorry, how do I find out what chipset I have?

 

The easiest way to check is go into you device manager go to the dropdown(the + sign) for Universal Serial Bus Controllers and the first few at the dropdown will list the chipset type for example: Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB Universal Host Contoler, there are other ways to do it but Im trying to get you toward the possible problem

 

If you have an Intel processor you have an intel chipset. If you have an AMD processor you have an nvidia chipset.

Go to HP.com and get the correct drivers for you computer. You can search by your specific computer.

 

More bad news

I downloaded the appropriate chipset driver for the computer. Then I deleted the existing driver software, restarted, and tried to install the new drivers.

It gives an error:

Windows found driver software for your device but encountered an error while attempting to install it.

Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 2836

Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39).

 

Any ideas?

 

On the yellow flags.. right click and select uninstall, reboot. Windows should recognize the hardware and install appropriately. Go the HP site and download the drivers for your model.

 

Yes kanehi, I did that but it gives the code 39 error.

 

It sounds like your USB controller has died. Did they stop working between boots, or was there an error and then they stopped working? If the machine is still under warranty (given that it's a dv6500, I don't see how it wouldn't be), you might have to send it back to HP for repairs - it's likely to be a hardware defect.

 

solaroid, by any chance did you do a firmware upgrade lately?

 

No, I haven't done a firmware upgrade... I don't remember doing anything special, the first time I realized it didn't work was when I plugged in my iPod a few weeks ago and it wasn't recognized.

How could it be a hardware defect though, I had it for about 2 months and everything was fine, and now it's not working. Should I try system restore??

 

Boot into BIOS, and use an external USB keyboard to navigate. Does the keyboard work?

Yes? - Then it is a Windows problem
No? - Then your USB controller is shot.

 

OK now where getting some where, I should have asked more questions at the beginning (I was going to get to that)
Im not sure if you are using Vista or XP but Vista seems to be more serceptcal to usb problems with mass storage devices and a iPod is a mass storage device, when usb came in the big story was that you can hot plug devices, that story is dead wrong, its ok to hot plug a printer or scanner as long its not doing work at that time so many people went under the impression its ok to hot plug anything usb, the answer to that is wrong, when it comes to mass storage devices such as usb hard drives memory keys, iPods and so on, there is a problem here, when a mass storage device is plugged in, it is still active if you did not shut it down the windows way, and that is by ejecting the device, (right click the device and click on eject, the problem gets worse if you have enabled Advanced performance in your system manager), did you unplug your iPod without doing the proper shutdown procedure, if not then doing it many times will not only corrupt your usb controller, it can go beyond that in corruptions, right now it hard to tell how far back the corruption has gone, it maybe to the point where the easiest way to fix it is a complete windows reinstall, because back tracking that problem can take for ever, do like GREG says on the bios and take it from there.

Ok you are on Vista

 

If you're really desperate, just back up everything and system restore your laptop. System restore has all the appropriate drivers for the main functions, including USB drivers (i think), if doesn't, it will download them from microsoft or intel.

 

Okay, thanks for the help. I have unplugged my iPod the bad way several times before in the past... I tried a system restore to the earliest restore point but it didn't help.

I guess I'll have to do a full Windows reinstall.... right?

 

Thats going to be your best bet. Backup anything important to optical media of some kind (such as DVD or CD) and reinstall away.

If possible though, try Greg's suggestion first. A USB keyboard not functioning in the BIOS will mean that its likely a hardware error and the notebook will have to be sent away for repair.

 

rosso knows best!


IF YOU EVER LOOSE THE USE OF ALL YOUR USB DEVICES IN ALL YOUR PORTS.
THIS IS THE PROBABLE FIX BELOW OR AT LEAST I HOPE IT IS FOR YOU.

1. OPEN C DRIVE FROM YOUR COMPUTER
2. OPEN WINDOWS
3. SCROLL DOWN AND OPEN SYSTEM32
4. OPEN DriverStore
5. OPEN FileRepository
6. SCROLL DOWN AND OPEN usbstor.inf YOU WILL PROBABLY SEE A COUPLE OF FILES NAMED THIS usbstor.inf WITH NUMBERS AFTER IT YOU NEED TO LOOK AT THE DATE AND TIME AND OPEN THE NEWEST ONE
7. YOU WILL SEE 4 FILES YOU NEED TO COPY BY DRAGGING YOUR MOUSE WITH YOUR LEFT BUTTON PRESSED OVER THESE TWO FILES :- usbstor AND usbstor.PNF WHEN THESE TWO ARE HIGHLIGHTED YOU NEED TO REALISE YOUR LEFT BUTTON AND PRESS YOUR RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON THEN SELECT COPY
8. OK YOU CAN NOW CLOSE THIS BOX OFF
9. NOW OPEN C DRIVE FROM YOUR COMPUTER
10. OPEN WINDOWS
11. CLICK ON THE FILE NAMED INF
12. SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THE LIST AND WITH YOUR MOUSE POINTER OVER A BLANK PART CLICK PASTE
13. THIS WILL PASTE THE 2 FILES INTO THIS FOLDER
14. IF IT ASKS YOU TO OVER WRIGHT AN EXISTING FILE SAY YES
15. CLOSE THE FOLDER
16. RESTART YOUR COMPUTER
17. AND HEY PRESTO YOU SHOULD HAVE SOME WORKING USB PORTS

IF YOU WERE NOT ALLOWED TO DROP THE 2 FILES INTO THE INF FOLDER YOU MIGHT HAVE TO DISABLE YOUR USER ACCOUNT IN YOUR CONTROL PANEL CLICK ON USER ACCOUNT THEN CLICK ON TURN USER ACCOUNT CONTROL ON OFF DESELECT THE USER ACCOUNT CONTROL AND RESTART YOUR COMPUTER.
AND START FROM STEP 1 AGAIN.

HOPE THIS IS HELPS YA OUT

RUSS

 

I'd try Gregs suggestion first! it should prove out if it's Windows or the USB controller.. it'll save you watching progress bars for a while!

 

I'll try this --- sorry, how do I boot into BIOS?

 

Is it just like pressing F2 when the computer is starting up? And then it goes to the BIOS screen... is that correct?

 

YES: Good news. I went into BIOS and plugged in an external USB keyboard and it works!! So that means it is not a hardware problem, it is a software problem.