All USBs Want to be Formatted

[alkinca]

Over Christmas we were given Windows 7 64 bit to update our laptop from windows xp 32 bit. As soon as we installed Windows 7 we started having major problems with our USB devices. Every time I plug in a usb device (iPods, Digital Camera, Videocamera (w/hdd), external hd) windows 7 says their file system isn't recognized and that it needs to reformat them to NTFS. All of these device worked great before. Also, I have an external hard drive that has both a usb and a eSATA. I was having these format problems with the usb but when I switch to using the eSATA everything worked great. I've tried USB drivers, but I'm still getting the errors. I saved all my information on multiple devices (thumb drives and a camera) and then tried to format them but an error message comes up saying that they cannot be reformatted and they still wont work.

PLEASE HELP! My computer still works fine with everything else. But my iPod, iPhone, Cameras, external hard drives, etc. are all useless.

Thanks for your time and thanks for any help that you can provide!

 

[Shadowjk]

Did they ever work on Windows 7? If so please run a System restore

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/700-system-restore.html

 

[Bill2]

Do you mean that the usb drives successfully formatted to ntfs but still dont work?

 

[alkinca]

USBs never worked after the Windows 7 install.

And NO, the usb's wont format correctly. An error messages comes up saying it cannot be reformatted.

 

[Bill2]

Use the instuctions in post #2 in this thread.

http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/61770-cannot-format-usb-flash-drive.html

Try the default format (fat32 or whatever) and first try it with your thumb drives.

If that doesnt help, use the HP format tool.

HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Downloads

 

[alkinca]

Will a system restore fix it if USB's have never worked since windows 7?

Also, I tried both the reformatting tricks with no luck. I used a thumb drive with nothing on it and it said there was nothing to format. I also used a used thumb drive, it started to format and looked like it was going to work but halfway through got stuck and stayed there for over 4 hours.

No USB devise work and under My Computer they arent even recognized...

 

[Britton30]

Over Christmas we were given Windows 7 64 bit to update our laptop from windows xp 32 bit. As soon as we installed Windows 7 we started having major problems with our USB device

Is the Win 7 X64 a Genuine Microsoft DVD? Is there separate software which goes with your USB devices? If they have never worked after Win 7 was installed a restore probably won't help. What may help, a shot in the dark, Is to run System File Checker

 

[dsperber]

Can you please provide detail specifics on your laptop... manufacturer, brand, model, age/purchase-date, etc..

Certainly an unusual symptom, that all of these USB devices were supported just fine with 32-Bit WinXP and are no longer supported properly as USB devices under 64-bit Win7. But then, maybe it is the laptop hardware itself which is the problem. Having trouble with older legacy hardware working just fine under WinXP but having problems going forward to Win7 because of driver issues is not at all uncommon. Finding (if even possible) the proper Win7-compatible drivers is sometimes a real challenge for this older hardware, and it may simply not be possible in worst case.

Anyway, more info on your hardware will be helpful.

Also, when you have one of these USB devices connected (let's say your camera), is it in MSC mode or MTP mode (if this is a configuration option in your camera)? When you look in Device Manager (right-click on Computer, select Properties, select Device Manager on the left side) do the devices appear correctly in the list of devices?

Just trying to gather any clues or observations you might think of...

 

[Britton30]

So what's up with you alkinca?