please help... missing driver?

Hi- My laptop (windows XP) refuses to recognize any external hard drives (flash drives, my 200gb external hd, ipod). All have been formatted and are working properly, as I have checked them on other computers.

I have three USB 2.0 ports which will recognize anything but a hard drive (my mouse, my printer, ect). Occasionally, when I plug in any of my external hd, a yellow question mark will appear in the device manager with the hd's name after it... but even thats not always a guarantee. And even when it does show up as a question mark, I've had no luck past that point.

I've searched around endlessly online and have tried multiple answers to seemingly similar problems, but no luck. All I can assume is my OS is missing some driver or key component.
Any advice??
any help you could offer would be GREATLY appreciated...I'm officially out of ideas..

 

Try Windows Update with the device connected. Preferably with the yellow.

 

thanks for your quick response... unfortunately it didn't work

 

Where do you see the ? mark? Is it in the USB section or in the disk drives section? What does it say when double-clicked?

 

the biggest trouble I had at one point with working with a situation like that was the usb ports were 1.5's, and the hardware the man's device required was a 2.0 usb port. I don't know what your ports are but you might check to see if there's a difference. Let us know...Jazz

 

thanks jazz.. I had seen some posts about that in a different thread so I check to make sure, but they are all 2.0. Also, I know people who have the exact same computer who don't have this problem, so thats why I think there is something my computer is missing... just can't figure out what!

Elvandil- the question mark is also accompanied by a small !, which is then followed by the name of my external hd (flash disk, ipod, mass storage drive). They fall under the category "Other Devices"-which also has a question mark by it. But besides knowing the name of my external hd's, clicking on it does not give me any more information. It says the same thing for all 3 hd's:
device type: other devices.
manufacture: unknown
location: 0
"this device is not configured correctly".

but again, all my external hd's work perfectly on any other computer....

 

Take a look at the fix in this post.

Check your BIOS settings. It may have updated itself, so try defaults or any other possible USB options.

 

Are you running SP 1 or 2 Windows XP?

 

I'm running SP 2.

I went into my bios settings.. but I don't know the difference between some of the settings for the ports. I immediately noticed "FIR" was disabled though. so I just selected the defaults. Still no luck with recognizing my hard drives, but now there is another "unknown device" it keeps trying to install hardware for... only there is nothing connected to it. ha, go figure

I haven't tried any different options for the USB ports though (except the system default). I guess I'll just have to play around with them. I cant mess anything up by just changing the settings on the ports, right??

 

FIR is infrared. If it's enabled it will be looking for that device.
Can I ask as I don't think I've read anything in these posts that specifiy what type of HD you're trying to attach to the usb. Is this an over the counter or an enclosure you've put together. I know there are conflicts with the enclosures with certain computers. Let us know. Jazz

 

Hi Jazz- All my HD's are over the counter... I have an I/O Magic 200gb, multiple brand flash drives, and an IPod, all of which I've had no luck with. I initially thought it might be a compatability problem, but I know a few people who have my identical laptop (same package, model, etc) and they do not have this problem.
So when I reset my BIOS settings to the defaults, I really thought it would work!! I know it turned my FIR back on..

 

Do you have iTunes installed? If so, try uninstalling it. There may be driver conflicts. I'd suggest uninstalling anything that installs drivers for the CD-ROM, but that may prove impractical.

You could try this fix. Afterward, since it removes the loading of filter drivers, you may need to reinstall any apps that don't work properly.

1. Click on START button, the click on RUN.

2. Enter REGEDIT and press Enter.

3. When REGEDIT starts, open up the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Class/
{4D36E965-E325 -11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.

4. After clicking on {4D36E965-E325 -11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} you should see two settings on the right-hand side:
"Upperfilters"
"Lowerfilters"
Click on each of them, press DELETE and click YES.

Or you can download this reg file to do the same thing.

 

You be sure if this works to let us know. I'm up for learning something. LOL Jazz
Interesting information.

 

thanks for the tips, unfortunately no luck yet. I actually didn't even have "lowerfilters" in the file you suggested, but I deleted "upperfilters".
I've looked around..deleted some things. But if it is a driver conflict, I haven't been able to locate it yet

 

Hopefully, you've rebooted since, but if not, try that.