TROUBLE WITH USB DEVICE 1

[JEMG]

Hello, I am new to this site, please bear with me.
I recently purchased a SmartDisk FotoChute. It is basically a mini hard drive with usb connection. It is a plug and play which works fine on the Dell PC's at work. My problem is, when I plug it in to my Compaq Presario SR1230NX, it does not get "recognized". The only way I can make it work is to plug in another usb device first, then plug in the FotoChute. The PC will then show it as a local drive. Any idea how to correct this?

Thank you for any help.

 

[Nelviticus]

Is it a USB-powered drive or does it have its own separate power supply? If the former it could be because the USB socket you're plugging it into doesn't supply quite enough power. Try a different socket - you may find that some have a little '+' near the USB trident symbol, which means they supply more power than normal ports.

Nelviticus

 

[ngxGraz]

http://sdkbase.smartdisk.com/display/2n/_index1.asp?tab=opt2&r=9.457904E-02

Hope that helps

 

[JEMG]

Thank you for your replies.

Nelviticus, It is a USB powered device, however, the user manual states that you can use the ac adapter for more power, which does no good. I have a total of 7 USB ports and none of them work any different. I have tried uninstalling all the usb hubs, etc. then rebooting. I have also installed all the updates for bios, drivers, etc. I have updated the firmware on the FotoChute device. After removing all the USB's and rebooting, I plug in the FofoChute and it says "found new hardware" then "there was a problem with installation and device may not work properly". When I go into device manager the mass storage device shows the yellow exclamation point. I also tried to re-assign different drive letters with no results. As I stated before, if I plug in any other USB device first, leave it plugged in, then plug in the FofoChute it works fine. I suppose if that works I can live with it. It just frustrates me not to be able to figure this out!!

ngsGraz, I appreciate the link, but I tried that already. Thank you anyway.

 

[Nelviticus]

Hmm, not really sure what to suggest then. There's always that chance that it could be faulty - try connecting it to another PC (one that's been booted with no USB devices connected) and if you have the same issue you'll know that the problem is with the FotoChute rather than your PC.

Bah, I've just read your original post and you've already tried that. Hmm ... the only thing I can think of to try is to check your event logs to see whether there's any useful info there. Right-click 'My Computer', select 'Manage' then expand the 'Event Viewer' tree and have a look in 'System' and 'Application'. You're only interested in any red or yellow entries and they may well just tell you what you already know, but you may get lucky.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[JEMG]

Nelviticus,
Thanks again for the info. This one seems to have everyone stumped. I can make it work, as I stated previously, by plugging in ANY other USB device first, then plugging in the FotoChute. Not a huge deal, but I am a stickler on getting things "right" as I'm sure you are, judging from this site.
Thanks for trying.