USB ports not working properly on HP s7700n

[gargoyle47]

I just installed WinXp Pro Sp3 on this computer. I have added the necessary drivers for the Chipsets.

The computer has 4 usb ports on the back of the computer and one in the front along with a multil card reader.

The problem is none of the port will show the content that is on the flash drive.
The drive shows up in the Window explorer but none of content on the drive will show up.

I have uninstalled and re-installed all the drivers needed for the usb ports. But none of these has change the problem. Using instruction supplied by MS for this type of problem.

These same ports will work properly with usb mouse and keyboards. Also I have tried working different usb flash drives, however none of them show the content of any of the drives.

Any idea of what to do next?

Hardware Base processor
Athlon 64 X2 (W) 3800+ 2.0 GHz

Chipset
GeForce 6150 LE

Motherboard
Manufacturer: Asus
Motherboard Name: A8N-BR
HP/Compaq motherboard name: Pyrite-GL8E

Memory card reader
* USB interface
* Supports the following cards:Compact Flash I, Compact Flash II, SmartMedia, Memory Stick,Memory Stick Pro, MultiMediaCard,Secure Digital (SD),Micro Drive,xD Picture Card (xD = extreme digital)

External I/O ports
I/O ports on the front panel

Port type Quantity
9-in-1 (2 slot) + 1 USB, One Headphones, One I/O ports on the back panel

I/O ports on the back panel
Port type Quantity
PS/2 (keyboard, mouse) Two
VGA One
USB Four
1394 One
LAN One
SPDIF out (coaxial) One Audio

Never Say Never (Romeio Void)

Homebuilt MSI MD5000MD-5000 M-ATX, 2.4Gig, 393mb, WinXp Pro
Homebuilt Iwill KK266R-Plus, 768mb, WinXp Pro

 

[goombawaho]

Have you tried the problem flash drives on a different computer? I'm suspecting something regarding the drives and not the computer.

 

[gargoyle47]

Yes, that was the first thing I did. The drives were tried on 2 different computers and they worked perfectly.

And the drives showed up in the proper places.
Windows Explorer
Computer #1 Drive M
Computer #2 Drive E

Computer Management
Storage
Removable storage
Disk Management
Disk Removable

Thanks for your reply

Never Say Never (Romeio Void)

Homebuilt MSI MD5000MD-5000 M-ATX, 2.4Gig, 393mb, WinXp Pro
Homebuilt Iwill KK266R-Plus, 768mb, WinXp Pro

 

[flyboytim]

One thing you could try is to remove any installed, but unused USB devices in case these are conflicting. There are both USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 XP drivers which do not always decide which has precedence. There are no guarantees that the following will solve your problem. At the very least it is a bit of housekeeping.

Windows XP has a poor reputation for leaving multiple, unused USB device entries in the registry. These do not get cleaned out by registry cleaners, and contribute to slow performance in XP systems.

I don't know of a more efficient way of doing the following:

Go to device manager (start, My Computer, right-click Manage, device manager, then view, and check show hidden devices.

At the foot of the device tree, open up Universal Serial Bus controllers.

Several types of devices will be shown, and some of them will be greyed - these have registry entries for devices that are no longer present - they are safe to uninstall - right-click each in turn and select uninstall. The warning dialog will pop up so click OK.

Do this for all the USB devices that are greyed.

Next, check Storage Volumes - these may be left behind when USB storage has been attached and removed - cameras,including phones, MP3 players, as well as external hard disks and memory sticks leave stuff here. Uninstall the greyed entries.

Next, check Printers. It is not unusual for there to be many entries for each printer deployed - uninstall all greyed printers.

Uninstall all greyed Other Devices.

Any greyed Non-Plug and Play Drivers. And so on...

Make sure you explore Mice and other pointing devices, and uninstall greyed HID -compliant mouse entries, and unknown devices . Careful, you could uninstall the device you were clicking with!

Keyboards can also be HID - and greyed - uninstall.

The longest list is likely to be under Human Interface Devices - again, uninstall the greyed entries.

Floppy disks? if greyed, uninstall.

Disk drives - I find that there is often little duplication here, but greyed devices can go.

Finally, any devices that have yellow ! Warning triangles can be uninstalled too - they will be rediscovered and an attempted install will occur at next startup.

Next, shut down, restart, and try again.

http://www.fxxxingcomputers.co.uk

 

[gargoyle47]

To flyboytim,
Thanks for you reply

I have done what you suggest and looked for any device that may not have deleted properly.

Since this is new installed, I did not find any thing that did not belong, there were no greyed out items to be found.

When I checked the Device Manager the flash drive is listed and is reported as "working properly"

When I check the Disk Management section the drive is listed but it also state "unreadable".

However as stated before this same drive is good on other computer.

Thanks again for you reply.

Never Say Never (Romeio Void)

Homebuilt MSI MD5000MD-5000 M-ATX, 2.4Gig, 393mb, WinXp Pro
Homebuilt Iwill KK266R-Plus, 768mb, WinXp Pro

 

[flyboytim]

Sorry, my fault, I wasn't clear that the SP3 hadn't been installed on an existing XP installation.

Is it possible that the mass storage device driver has not loaded?

If in device manager, by connection, the generic volume that is the storage in the USB drive is connected by the USB Mass storage device driver to the USB Root Hub which connects to the standard enhanced USB 2.0 to PCI controller and thence to the PCI bus.

What is the capacity (GB) of the USB drive, the file system (NTFS, FAT32 etc.) installed, and are there any partitions on the drive? I don't think Windows handles partitions on removable drives, but Linux can. Sometimes, USBs formatted by other devices, cameras, MP3 players, factory formats, can't be read by some Windows PCs either.

Backup the files on the USB drive on the computer that can read it, then format the drive as FAT32 under Windows, or NTFS if the expected use requires it.

Then try the drive on the problem PC. Does it recognise an empty drive? Can It format the drive itself?

One more thing - is autorun enabled for removable storage devices? This may force the driver to load.

http://www.fxxxingcomputers.co.uk

 

[gargoyle47]

Sorry I think there is bit of miscommunication here, the drive is not a hard drive but a flash drive.

It is Scan Disk 1 GB flash drive format: FAT

The drive is recognized in the following:
Window Explorer = "Drive I" but does not show content
Disk Manager= Disk # 5 but listed as Unreadable
Device Manager = generic mass storage
Safely Remove Hardware = listed as Drive I

However it does not show under
Computer Management
Storage
Removable Storage = Nothing list here

The computer is running WinXp Pro Sp2 freshly loaded.

I do not what else I can add.

Thanks for helping to try and solve this problem.


Never Say Never (Romeio Void)

Homebuilt MSI MD5000MD-5000 M-ATX, 2.4Gig, 393mb, WinXp Pro
Homebuilt Iwill KK266R-Plus, 768mb, WinXp Pro

 

[flyboytim]

Hi Gargloyle47 - bit of a mouthful, that - can I call you G47?

Yes - I knew that it was a flash drive - letter I: - Unreadable. Do you mean SanDisk?

The format may be slightly faulty, hence the steps below:

Can you save whatever contents on it you want to keep, to a machine that is able to read from it, and then use that machine to reformat the flash drive to FAT32 - even if that is the file system that is reported to be on the flash drive already?

Can you then return the drive to the PC you are having problems with, and 1] can the drive be recognised as a readable, writeable drive, and 2] can that machine reformat (FAT32) the flash drive?

After 2], if possible, and if the FAT32 reformat seems to have worked, transfer the contents back to the flash drive from the other machine and try again with the machine with problems?

In the first post, you said SP3, in the last, SP2. Which is it?

There was a considerable update to get rid of bugs in the USB handling routines in the SP3 Update to XP, especially the different ways USB 2.0 was handled cf. USB 1.1.

http://www.fxxxingcomputers.co.uk

 

[BadBigBen]

did you install the latest ChipSet drivers for your mainboard?

see if the USBSTOR.SYS file is missing, it is usually found here:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers

if it is missing, then copy the file from a working PC to the above location and reboot...

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[gargoyle47]

Again thanks for the replies.

To BadBigBen,
The file you listed to check was present, guess it was not that.
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers \USBSTOR.SYS

To flyboytim,

First off I refomated the drive on my main working computer to Fat32
Then tryed in the Hp,
Still no joy here still show up but still not content list in it.

Any yes it was SP2 but I download Sp3 and installed and still no joy here.

I think I will wipe the drive and start all over and then see what happens may something just got foul up during installation.

It's a pain but maybe I'll have better luck the second time.
If you interested I post back on the result of the second go around.

Thanks again for trying to help me solve this problem.


Never Say Never (Romeio Void)

Homebuilt MSI MD5000MD-5000 M-ATX, 2.4Gig, 393mb, WinXp Pro
Homebuilt Iwill KK266R-Plus, 768mb, WinXp Pro