USB/Network driver failure

[steviemac2000]

Hi, first time poster, hoping to get some answers.

I have an HP Pavilion 2030SA laptop runniing Windows 7 that I got at Xmas, which has been working great until last night's automatic Windows update. Now it boots up but all the USB, network & IR drivers are disabled, code 39. I have tried deleting/reinstalling the devices in Device Manager, and running the startup repair from the Windows 7 DVD, to no avail. It doesn't recognize them in safe mode either. I know it is definitely not a hardware issue, as I have 2 copies of Windows on my machine, one for general use & one for music production, and the music production one is fine. It is not connected to the net so it did not get the update. I can only hypothesize it is the update that has caused this, but I tried uninstalling the last few updates and this didn't do anything either. Also grabbed the HP drivers from their website on my old laptop, got them onto my new laptop through the other music partition (USB doesn't work!), and tried installing them, which also didn't work.

I'm reluctant to do a clean install as I have a lot of data on there & programs installed. I'll do it if I have to, but I'm hopeful there is a fix!

Your assistance / suggestions are welcome.

- Steve

 

[fishnbanjo]

There have been quite a few updates of late and it is possible your driver was corrupted.
IF this is only happened last evening there's a good chance you might be able to go back 2-3 days doing a System Restore, what you are looking for is when it did the last update and go back before that happened and see if this helps get your USN, Network etc. back.

 

[steviemac2000]

I didn't have System Restore turned on to save disk space. More fool me.

 

[fishnbanjo]

Ouch! Can you try setting up the music one to connect to at least rule out the network card is still working, or try the IR while in it or even a few .mpg's on your USB stick.

 

[steviemac2000]

USB & network card all work in other partition. Someone on the HP forum suggested removing the battery for 30 secs but that didn't do anything. Any other suggestions welcome.

 

[fishnbanjo]

Removing the battery is part of it, you need to remove the power cable then hold your power button down for a minimum of 30 seconds to drain it totally, then plug power back in and run it without the battery if the system supports that, and finally put the battery back after it has run for more than 3 hours giving the battery a chance to drain by 1% so it will go into charge mode.

 

[steviemac2000]

Tried this, left the battery out all night actually, and no joy. That fix would seem to apply if it was a hardware issuee, but mine definitely isn't.

 

[fishnbanjo]

Do you have room on your hard drive to make a 25Gb partition by using Shrink? If so I would do that and then place a fresh installation of Windows 7 on that partition which obviously will give you a dual boot.

I did this when I had issues with XP Pro that I could not solve in normal mode but it would run in SAFE Mode. It allowed me to use the programs and data I had on the original installation until I could systematically find the problem then fix it, ended up the problem was in my Registry and when I edited it to be like the other instance of XP Pro it was fixed. This might not be your problem just thought I'd mention it.

 

[steviemac2000]

I'm going to try an registry checker next. Reinstalling Windows didn't work as it said there was something wrong with the registry.

 

[steviemac2000]

RegCure found some errors and corrected them, but the problem remains. Getting rather annoyed now.

 

[steviemac2000]

OK, this guide:

UpperFilters LowerFilters - How to Delete the UpperFilters and LowerFilters Registry Values

fixed the issue, my USB & network card are back, but in the process I've managed to disable my trackpad and mouse! Coming up as code 10, cannot start. Same deal, tried deleting them in device manager but that didn't work.

 

[steviemac2000]

Sorted! Accidentally deleted the UpperFilters entry for 'mice and other pointing devices' - readded this and we're back! Took most of the weekend but at least it's fixed.