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Servant-LeggieFlag for Australia

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Windows 7 not reading all USB devices

Hey guys,

I have a PC here at the moment which is able to read some USB devices, but not others. I have tried updating the appropriate driver/s, but this had produced no results. It seems that the PC can detect the USB keyboard, mouse and camera connection (even enough to be able to view and download photos off said camera), but USB flash drives and printers cannot be detected.

Do you have any idea what might be causing this issue and, more to the point, what can be done to resolve it?
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Tymetwister
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Have you tested the working USB devices in different ports to ensure all of the ports are working?
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graemehurley

Is this a Acer PC ?, Acer PC's sometimes have a E- Lock feature to lock out USB use for external drives
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Tymetwister, the working USB devices (USB mouse/ USB keyboard) work in ALL ports on both the front and back of the tower.

graemehurley, no, it's a custom-built machine we built for the customer which has a good quality Gigabyte mobo, Intel CPU, Corsair RAM, etc (not a cheap-and-nasty, basically).
Does it have an adequate power supply
graemehurley, yeah, PSU is an Antec ECO NEO 450W - ample for this basic and relatively new PC.
In the Control Panel > Folder Options select the view tab.  Un-check the box to hide empty drives in the computer folder.
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Robert Retzer
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Eddielaux, no change, I'm afraid

Web-tracker, yes, I checked device manager and could see, after a few moments, a USB device appear with a yellow 'warning' triangle appear over it. ONLY one of the USB device icons has this - all the others look fine, and this yellow warning triangle only appears once I have connected up the USB device. Removing all USB devices, restarting the PC and reinstalling the latest chipset drivers don't resolve the issue. There are also no devices showing greyed-out, as you mentioned, whether the device I'm trying to access is connected or not.

Nobus, where are the USB devices in disk management? I you mean above Disk Management in the left column, they are there and displaying as seen when accessing device manager. There is no 'removable storage' service in services.msc, only storage service, as this is set as with other Win7Pro PCs I'm cross-referencing (stopped and set to manual start). Even when I start it (although, this services may have no direct connection to what I'm trying to do, no change is seen, even after reboot).
Nobus, tried to right-click and install from usbstor.inf (yes, if was still there), but received windows 'Install Error' stating that, "The INF file you selected does not support the method of installation."
if you click on disk management under storage, you'll see them in the right pane
for the inf file install, use this method then :
device manager>monitor>update driver software>browse my computer>let me choose>have disk>browse to .inf file>click
you can also double click the inf file and see if it installs.
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look at this screenshot plse

User generated image
also, the power problem is solved if you use a POWERED usb hub like : http://www.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=158910
Nobus, thanks. Yes, I knew that, but I thought you were referring to the USB ports themselves, rather than the attached drives (my mistake, I'm sure). No, the drives were not showing up there.

True, a powered USB Hub would do the same thing as putting in extra PCI/ PCI-E ports, but the latter option suited his means/ space/ inclination more.
Installation of PCI/ PCI-E USB cards bypassed power issue, Nobus & web-tracker offering very helpful information to bring me to a point of realising this wa the most suitable solution.
good luck..and tx for feedback