Windows Struggling with USB Devices

[toronado97]

My fiance is running a Dell E521 with Windows XP. I don't really understand what the problem is, but it will not install USB devices properly. For instance, her keyboard sucks atm, so I gave her my old Logitech Elite to use. It's a USB keyboard. She plugs it in, and Windows pops up with the found new hardware wizard, and can't find drivers for it. It fails to install, and we can't use it on her computer. Same keyboard gets plugged into my computer, and I don't even see the wizard, it just works. Period. Same problem with a Zboard gaming pad she uses, I unplugged all her USB stuff today to do some work inside her case, plugged it all back in, rebooted Windows, and it didn't work. Uninstalled, reinstalled, did everything I could think of and it just wouldn't install properly. Finally I unzipped the install CD to the desktop and physically pointed the found new hardware wizard to it, and it found and installed it, and now it works.

I guess I'm asking two questions here: Why is it acting in such an assinine fashion, and is it possible to download new basic keyboard drivers so she can use this keyboard?

PS. I installed Daemon Tools on there last night, and the ghost drives wouldn't show up, they just showed device 0, or device 1. I had to physicall install the drivers for cdroms from the windows ini directory to make that work. It's like it's missing all the basic windows drivers, but her current keyboard (logitech also) works, so I don't understand wtf the problem is. One USB keyboard works, the other doesn't, it makes absolutely zero sense. Tried different USB ports with no change in results.

 

[Horsepower]

Good troubleshooting here although I was going to suggest checking the bios. Early in XP I had a system that acted weird like that and a bios update and Windows service pack fixed it.

 

[toronado97]

I don't get why her bios would be messed up though, it's worked fine for over a year now. I don't think she's had any issues until she got a keylogger and I had to do a reformat and total system reinstall about two months ago. I think I'm just going to bite the bullet and try again.

 

[Swampster]

Hey Tornado,

I have had the same problem with several systems. They will continue to recognize USB devices already installed, but won't install new ones.

Can you network this computer with yours? If so, create a folder in her root directory called INFNEW and share it. Connect to her computer and copy the entire contents of your C:/Windows/inf folder over to this newly created folder.

Go to her computer and copy/paste the contents of this new folder into her C:\Windows\inf folder, answering Yess To All when prompting. Reboot the system and she will be back in business.

If you cannot network to her, do the transfer with a CD-R.

Note that the inf folder is hidden, so you may have to go into Folder Settings and tell it to show all hidden files/folders.