XP can't recognize USB drivers anymore

[Lifter]

I've tried several hubs and a few other devices. Other than my mouse, it won't install the drivers. When I plug it in the wizard pops up (shouldn't happen w/ hubs). The "Have Disk" function has dissapeared when I try to manually point to the driver. When I do automatic search and point to the driver, it just says "Cannot Install this Hardware". I've tried 3 different hubs (one was a USB 2.0 hub), a USB keyboard, a USB cellphone adapter, and a gamepad. Same problem with all of them. Oddly enough, my MS USB mouse is the only thing that works.

I don't know how this happened, but XP suddenly won't recognize drivers anymore. Everything had worked fine for a while and all of the sudden after a reboot this happened. The only thing recently installed that could have anything to do w/ it is ActiveSync (which I uninstalled and it still doesn't work).

I've tried removing all USB devices in device manager w/o luck. Then it got really weird when I tried to boot into safe mode and remove them. The machine runs 100% stable normally, but now it locks up everytime I try to boot in safe mode?!?

I even bought a PCI USB 2.0 card just in case something was up with my onboard USB controllers. Nothing changed.

After a few days, I decided to bite the bullet and do a clean install. I discovered I can't even do that. XP hangs after Setup finishes the blue-screen driver loading process.

Again, the machine is rock solid, like it's always been. I'm using it right now. I just can't install USB devices, boot into safe mode, or do a clean install. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

My system is an Athlon 2500+, DFI Infinity AD77, VIA KT400, Corsair DDR PC2700, Radeon 9500pro.

[confus-ed]

..After a few days, I decided to bite the bullet and do a clean install. I discovered I can't even do that. XP hangs after Setup finishes the blue-screen driver loading process...

Well welcome to windrivers Lifter

This along with the fact in won't start in safe mode, tells me, to use a technical expresion, that your install is 'pooched'

Can you clear this up for me though before we proceed ... how can you be typing on a machine that you did a 'clean install' on if the above is true, or did you mean you tried an 'over the top' or 'inplace re-install' where you re-run setup from inside windows ? If you meant a real 'clean install' generally that's considered where you have no previous o/s or have zapped it with format or whatever...

BTW activesync for anyone not familiar (this has done it, I'm almost certain !)

[Lifter]

Well welcome to windrivers Lifter

This along with the fact in won't start in safe mode, tells me, to use a technical expresion, that your install is 'pooched'

Can you clear this up for me though before we proceed ... how can you be typing on a machine that you did a 'clean install' on if the above is true, or did you mean you tried an 'over the top' or 'inplace re-install' where you re-run setup from inside windows ? If you meant a real 'clean install' generally that's considered where you have no previous o/s or have zapped it with format or whatever...

BTW activesync for anyone not familiar (this has done it, I'm almost certain !)

Thanks for the reply. I did mean a clean install, but I am unable to get to the point where I reformat the C drive. When I do a clean install, I normally just reformat the C drive within the XP setup program (after booting from the CD). I can't get that far in the setup. The blue screen that loads as soon as you boot the CD that loads the drivers (scsi USB firewire drivers, etc.) works. After that finishes, it says "Starting Windows" and just hangs.

I suppose I could just format it with a DOS disk, but I don't see why that would make a difference as far as the XP setup not working. I don't want to zap the C drive until I know I can reinstall XP. If it didn't work, I wouldn't be able to access this forum, for example.

I do have some new info. My machine was hit badly with a virus. I've deleted the infected files and repaired the MBR with fdisk, but the problem is still there. I'm sure the virus corrupted system files and I will need to do a clean install, just as soon as I can figure out how.

[TripleRLtd]

Thanks for the reply. I did mean a clean install, but I am unable to get to the point where I reformat the C drive. When I do a clean install, I normally just reformat the C drive within the XP setup program (after booting from the CD). I can't get that far in the setup. The blue screen that loads as soon as you boot the CD that loads the drivers (scsi USB firewire drivers, etc.) works. After that finishes, it says "Starting Windows" and just hangs.

I suppose I could just format it with a DOS disk, but I don't see why that would make a difference as far as the XP setup not working. I don't want to zap the C drive until I know I can reinstall XP. If it didn't work, I wouldn't be able to access this forum, for example.

I do have some new info. My machine was hit badly with a virus. I've deleted the infected files and repaired the MBR with fdisk, but the problem is still there. I'm sure the virus corrupted system files and I will need to do a clean install, just as soon as I can figure out how.

OK, so now more info is needed!
Give us details about your PC: make/model, etc.
Also: important: do you get an error message?
If so, what is it, or does it just hang/stop?
If you would like to pursue this tonight with real time support, I recommend doing the WinDrivers chat route.
The people there will help you every step of the way for a truly "fresh/clean" install.
And, if it still fails, they will be right there helping you figure out why.
Good luck.

[Lifter]

OK, so now more info is needed!
Give us details about your PC: make/model, etc.
Also: important: do you get an error message?
If so, what is it, or does it just hang/stop?
If you would like to pursue this tonight with real time support, I recommend doing the WinDrivers chat route.
The people there will help you every step of the way for a truly "fresh/clean" install.
And, if it still fails, they will be right there helping you figure out why.
Good luck.

Thanks. My hardware is at the end of the first post. Today I rolled the dice and formated the C drive with a DOS disk. Didn't help. I get no error message when reinstalling XP. After all the mass storage drivers load, it says "Setup is now starting Windows" and it just hangs. I can't CTL+ALT+DEL or anything, I have to manually reset it.

Now I'm borrowing another PC till I can fix this.

Here's the scenario. I have an IDE RAID setup. Two drives are striped together. This RAID has two partitions, C and D. C is FAT32 and D is NTFS. As I said, C has been formatted clean. The D partition is still intact but needs to remain that way because it contains many important backup files. Tommorow, I'm going to buy another HD and backup all the files from D (using a DOS NTFS utility) so I can completely wipe clean both drives on the RAID and start from scratch. Hopefully, something will come up before then so I won't have to do that.

Because of the virus, and because I couldn't load safe mode and I can't run XP setup, I can only guess that the Master Boot Record is corrupted from the virus. Unfortunately, because it's a RAID array, fdisk/mbr doesn't seem to do anything. I get no message or anything when I run it- I just get a new command prompt.

[Geeman]

Thanks. My hardware is at the end of the first post. Today I rolled the dice and formated the C drive with a DOS disk. Didn't help. I get no error message when reinstalling XP. After all the mass storage drivers load, it says "Setup is now starting Windows" and it just hangs. I can't CTL+ALT+DEL or anything, I have to manually reset it.

Now I'm borrowing another PC till I can fix this.

Well hello.

I see you have the exact same problem I had, well you don't anymore (after following these steps anyway, I HOPE!). I've been hopping about from forum-to-forum helping people resolve this particular problem.

First of all, are you trying to install the latest version of XP? (XP Pro w/SP2)

Let me guess, you're tried everything, right? WRONG! Don't worry, a nasty virus didn't corrupt your hard drive and cause the MBR to explode.

Follow these easy steps to get back in the game...

1. Put yer Winders disk in and git-r-done right quick.

2. When you see "Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration" and (here's the important part) hit the F5 key once! You won't see anything but you just told Setup to allow you to manually choose a third-party hardware abstraction layer or "HAL" for short.

3. The blue setup screen will appear and ask you if you want to install a RAID driver, then ask if you want to run ASR, but just wait a sec. AH! Now you should see a number of HAL choices, try this one...

"Standard PC with C-Step i486"

4. Now sit back and install Winders!

Now, why the heck do you have to do this? Cause Microsoft failed to incorporate some motherboard configurations into their latest versions of XP. (And for the skeptics, don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about because I wouldn't be working for MS if I didn't)

So, that should have solved your problems. If not, try using another "HAL", there are 10 altogether and it may be a long night!

PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST!

[NooNoo]

Welcome to Windrivers Geeman and thanks for your info.... let's hope it helps.

[Grateful_Dad]

Something to keep in mind when doing the fresh install. I have seen a lot of hanging installs when a USB 2.0 card is installed, or USB2.0 is enabled on motherboard. Take out that USB card and check you BIOS settings for motherboard USB ports - set to 1.1 only. I don't think XPSP1 has the right drivers for USB 2.0
HTH

[confus-ed]

Welcome to Windrivers Geeman and thanks for your info.... let's hope it helps.

What even when its 'wrong' ?!?!? ..

Its all very well telling folks to go around 'interfering' with their windows xp installation .. but you need to understand the consequences & at least explain them a bit !

..When you see "Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration" and (here's the important part) hit the F5 key once! You won't see anything but you just told Setup to allow you to manually choose a third-party hardware abstraction layer or "HAL" for short..

But for once theres a bloody good reason that Billy Boy is doing it this way !!!! - Nearly all hardware now is designed to 'share' using ACPI - if you pick standard HAL then you effectively disable ACPI & use bios to arbitrate 'sharing issues'..

WTF are 'sharing issues' ? I hear you cry - well both ACPI & bios to some greater or lesser extent control the allocation of computer resources for internal & peripheral devices - it does this in a big 'sum' as the machine boots, there's no 'necessarily completely right' answer to this sum, it depends on a lot of factors (bios revision, acpi on or off, devices involved, what resources they have available dependant on 'connection placement' [motherboard add in slots {pci or isa or I suppose agp} all have different resource ranges available, put a card in a different slot & it may use different resources], resources used by system items).

Anyway 'randomly messing with your HAL' is not Geezer recommended anyway, even if Noo seems to think its all-right !

..that should have solved your problems. If not, try using another "HAL", there are 10 altogether and it may be a long night! ..

No don't try another one at all - there's only two that have any bearing here (unless we magically have a multi-processor board no-one mentioned), they are "ACPI Uniprocessor PC" or "Standard PC" - see this KB

For any single processor pc the rule of thumb is, ACPI always enabled unless you have 'issues' - then try 'standard pc' (ACPI set off in bios) - but there's a whole load of other approaches before I start turning it off, many drivers need it on !!!