USB not working

[helpme2pc]

I'm sorry if this should be in the peripheral section. I wasn't sure.

Here's the story... I have a customer with a Dell Dimension that's about 2 years old. Storms came through and had some problems with it since. The hd was corrupted and I managed to get that working ok but for some reason the USB ports aren't working right. When I plug something in, it powers up but there's no recognition by the os. I uninstalled and reinstalled the root hub and anything else that was listed in the device manager and that didn't help. The os found them and reintalled but still no luck. Updating the drivers didn't help. SFC didn't help either. Resetting the bios didn't help( remember Dell, so not a whole lot of options, just pulled the battery). I tried an add-on pci card and still having the same problem. I'm not sure what I missed but any help would be greatly appreciated. The only other thing I can think of is a OS repair install. Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[BadBigBen]

Before you do a Reinstall of XP (or Repair Install), try to use the CMD Line or Recovery Console with the commands:

CHKDSK c:\ /f /r
SFC /scannow

have the OS CD ready, with the SFC, this will check the SYSTEM FILES for corruption... if this does not work then do a REPAIR INSTALL, and do not forget the SP and Hotfixes afterwards (if needed)...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[westredd]

Or it could be that the clue is from the thunder storm. Perhaps some component that is related to the USB bus got damanged during the storm.

 

[helpme2pc]

It looks like there is something wrong with some hw component. I did a repair install (since the original problem was a corrupt disk, I thought I would just in case), flashed the bios, and reinstalled the chipset drivers and still nothing. I finally put a parallel install on the system, and guess what? No usb devices. The root hub still came up but nothing connected when attached. I still find it odd, but we've all decided that at this point it's better off to just go and get a new machine. Thanks for the advice!

 

[bcastner]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/892050/en-us

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=873169

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=870893

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310575

 

[Irish1957]

Dont Know if this is relevent. I was getting this and similar messages from my laptop
"USB Device not Recognized. One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it."
it would not connect any to any USB devices. The USB devices were working on my desktop. After some searching I found the following solution.
Depower the PC completly unplug the mains lead and with the laptop remove the battery and leave for sometime, 2 hours worked for me. on repowering the USB ports were working correctly