New USB Device Drivers Fail to Install

[Nation]

I have a problem with my laptop, which is a Dell M4800 Precision running Windows 7 x64 Pro.

What happens is whenever I plug in a usb device (keyboard, usb stick, usb floppy drive, etc) that this computer has not seen before, windows fails to install the device, stating that it could not find the device driver. Oddly enough it works fine with devices it has seen before some date in the past, such as my wireless mouse, all of my usb sticks, and my external harddrive.

If I plug a previously seen device into a port that it has never been in before, I get the same symptoms.

Looking up the failed device in device manager shows it with a code 28 (The drivers for this device are not installed.)

Stuff I have tried so far:

• Updated the intel usb 3.0 extensible host controller drivers from Dell's website.
• Ran the sfc /scannow command in a command prompt running as administrator. It stated everything was fine.
• Followed every step in this guide (deleting INCACHE.1, etc): http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/165554-usb-driver-general-fix-problems.html
• Attempted to do a system restore, but the earliest one I had was from the 29th. Same problem when I restored to that state. I undid the restore.
• Uninstalled everything under the usb devices in device manager, then rebooted. Windows was then unable to install virtually everything that used to be there. Had to restore the system to a point I made before attempting this so I could get back to at least using the known devices.
• Transplanted the C:\Windows\inf directory from a known good machine (my desktop) to this laptop with no avail.
• Created a system repair disc using the windows utility, then rebooted and ran it. The repair utility said it found no issues.

I've been fighting this problem for the last few days, and everywhere I look, it looks like the solution was to reinstall windows. I hope I don't have to do that.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[dsperber]

Perhaps you've somehow deactivated the automatic check with the Microsoft Update Catalog to retrieve drivers for newly installed hardware, which is where Windows would normally go to find these new drivers for devices not seen before on your machine.

Check the video on this MS web page, for instructions on how to enable this automatic retrieval of drivers from their "cloud", on the off-chance it's not currently set.

Otherwise, if you have an example of a device which fails to get the driver, can you post a screenshot from Device Manager showing it under "other devices" or "USB device" with a yellow exclamation mark (showing drivers not installed correctly)? Then, right-click on it, select Properties, go to the "details" tab, drop-down the Property Value listbox and select "Hardware ID", and post a screenshot of the hardware ID value you see there.

 

[maxie]

Hi Welcome to Seven Forums ... Have you updated the Chipset Driver ? ... What BIOS Version are you using ?

 

[Nation]

Perhaps you've somehow deactivated the automatic check with the Microsoft Update Catalog to retrieve drivers for newly installed hardware, which is where Windows would normally go to find these new drivers for devices not seen before on your machine.

Check the video on this MS web page, for instructions on how to enable this automatic retrieval of drivers from their "cloud", on the off-chance it's not currently set.

Otherwise, if you have an example of a device which fails to get the driver, can you post a screenshot from Device Manager showing it under "other devices" or "USB device" with a yellow exclamation mark (showing drivers not installed correctly)? Then, right-click on it, select Properties, go to the "details" tab, drop-down the Property Value listbox and select "Hardware ID", and post a screenshot of the hardware ID value you see there.

Yep, windows is already setup to do automatic driver retrieval.

 

[dsperber]

Yep, windows is already setup to do automatic driver retrieval.

So, how about my other request... for the Hardware ID of the unknown USB device which doesn't get its driver automatically installed?

If you post that hardware ID, we might be able to find the correct driver manually. But we need to see the hardware id.

 

[Nation]

Whoops, missed that.

Here are the USB hardware IDs:
USB\VID_1234&PID_FFFF&REV_0100
USB\VID_1234&PID_FFFF

Its for a generic usb stick.

I got it to work though, in a round about way.

I right clicked on the unknown usb device in device manager, then told it to update the device driver manually. I pointed it to C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository and then windows complained that the driver was unsigned. Said go ahead, and then another unknown device showed up under disk drives. Repeated the process and now I can read from the stick I wasn't able to read from.

So right now it seems that windows thinks all of its drivers are unsigned, thus causing the automatic process of installing them to fail.

On a side note, I think this thread might be better if it was moved to the drivers forum. If a mod see this, could they do that?

 

[dsperber]

Whoops, missed that.

Here are the USB hardware IDs:
USB\VID_1234&PID_FFFF&REV_0100
USB\VID_1234&PID_FFFF

Its for a generic usb stick.

Well, unfortunately this is clearly a generic device. So forget hunting for drivers.

I got it to work though, in a round about way.

I right clicked on the unknown usb device in device manager, then told it to update the device driver manually. I pointed it to C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository and then windows complained that the driver was unsigned. Said go ahead, and then another unknown device showed up under disk drives. Repeated the process and now I can read from the stick I wasn't able to read from.

So right now it seems that windows thinks all of its drivers are unsigned, thus causing the automatic process of installing them to fail.

Fascinating.

I don't know that it was the unsigned nature of the driver, if it was already in the FileRepository. Should have found it now, if it found it previously or if it was "generic". Anyway, if it's now working then that's good news.

On a side note, I think this thread might be better if it was moved to the drivers forum. If a mod see this, could they do that?

Not a problem. This Hardware sub-forum is fine. But yes, they could move the thread if they felt it to better be in the Drivers sub-forum.