Disabled Hardware ?

ok, i am posting this kind of in relation to a previous post if its felt to be a double post please merge! .
If devices and printers disables a peice of hardware ( in this case xbox 360 wireless controller Reciever ) and despite every effort (in my limited knowlege) wont come back. would it still be disabled if i do a clean install and would it be better to keep it unplugged during install or to plug in after install to receive update. i would prefer not to reinstall period ! however cold turkey gaming is a bitch

boohbah said:

ok, i am posting this kind of in relation to a previous post if its felt to be a double post please merge! .
If devices and printers disables a peice of hardware ( in this case xbox 360 wireless controller Reciever ) and despite every effort (in my limited knowlege) wont come back. would it still be disabled if i do a clean install and would it be better to keep it unplugged during install or to plug in after install to receive update. i would prefer not to reinstall period ! however cold turkey gaming is a bitch

If it is disabled due to a missing driver or because Windows 7 says it doesn't know what it is, you may be able to get it going by using the install disk for the device and going to the hardware, saying update driver, then "have disk" and pointing it to the CD or folder with the driver ".inf" file in it.

Here's the steps: Control Panel > Category > Small icons > System > Advanced System Settings (on the right side) > Hardware > Device Manager.

You should have a yellow triangle next to the device. Right click on it, click "Update driver software" then "Browse my computer for driver software" then browse to the CD or folder for the device.

thanks for response theschaft, the reciever was working fine a couple of days ago,and a nice lttle picture showed in devices and printers. i have been in device manager and no triangles show, in fact the hid compliant consumer controller etc show they are working when i right click and check properties .my new quandry is that after an upgrade install to win7 with no partition for vista as i am noob and cocked it up , can i now do a clean install from what is win7 (albeit an upgrade)

boohbah said:

thanks for response theschaft, the reciever was working fine a couple of days ago,and a nice lttle picture showed in devices and printers. i have been in device manager and no triangles show, in fact the hid compliant consumer controller etc show they are working when i right click and check properties .my new quandry is that after an upgrade install to win7 with no partition for vista as i am noob and cocked it up , can i now do a clean install from what is win7 (albeit an upgrade)

You can do a clean install with the Upgrade DVD. I've done it a number of times, including once after I completely formatted the HD - nothing on it, not even formatted.

Here's an excellent tutorial on how to do it:

Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

thanks for that i saw this tut earlier nice to have human confirmation though. thank you , so do you think that if i do a clean install that the hardware in question will stop being disabled, my concern is (in my ignorance) that if windows has managed to disable the reciever for good and the physical piece of equiptment is disabled not the software in the pc , as this would make the reinstall pointless. i dont have access today to another pc to plug reciever in to check, at a push i may ask my neighbour (im getting desprate!)

boohbah said:

thanks for that i saw this tut earlier nice to have human confirmation though. thank you , so do you think that if i do a clean install that the hardware in question will stop being disabled, my concern is (in my ignorance) that if windows has managed to disable the reciever for good and the physical piece of equiptment is disabled not the software in the pc , as this would make the reinstall pointless. i dont have access today to another pc to plug reciever in to check, at a push i may ask my neighbour (im getting desprate!)

Assuming you don't have a problem like this: Report: Microsoft bans 1 million Xbox Live players - CNN.com the issue should be with the driver.

I would try re-installing without the device connected, then once everything settles down - all updates done, OS activated, etc. - see what happens when you re-connect.

ok , back now .well i did ask my neighbour to check the reciever by plugging it into his laptop. by rights it should have installed the driver software immediately . nothing! he checked his device manager and nada so it would seem the reciever is broken ! problem now is finding replacement that is acctually in stock in the uk.
thank you schaft for your efforts and what a relief not to have to reinstal (clean) every time ive reinstalled in the past(vista) i lost some file or another that i remembered too late anyhow its all a learning curve i guess . bye f 'now
oh and the xbox live bans are for modded xbox's using pirate games, ha i struggle to operate my pc well, let alone mod an xbox which i dont own anyhow. TTFN