USB/Firewire vanished Advice please

[PamelaB]

Hi,

I have been trying to resolve this for months with no joy and really don't wish to format and start again due to a large amount of work on the PC.

Anyway here is the story.

I unistalled a trial version of the evil Roxio EMC, came back to my PC and my nightmare started.

Basically I turn on my pc and the found new hardware box pops up. It wont install anything.

For example

.Found : Generic USB SD Reader
.Found : USB CF Reader
.Found : USB SM Reader
.Found: USB SM Reader
.Found: IEEE 1394 controller

It won't le me reinstall, saying it can't find them.

In the system device manager they have either a ! in yellow or a ! and ?

I am using an Acer Aspire t180.

I have tried about 8 solutions from various sources around the net and now I'm stuck.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[NooNoo]

Welcome to Windrivers PamelaB

You should not rely on your pc's hard drive to store your data forever. You must make a back up, not only because the hard drive will fail someday, but because of problems like this.

What windows are you using?

[CCT]

This site:

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=3&gl=ca

described this solution that worked for a number of people:


'* I plugged a USB device into my machine --and Windoze didn't recognize it....
* It started trying to install the drivers --but instead of letting Windows do it "automatically"
* I clicked on "install driver from specific location" and pointed it to "C:\Windows\Inf" and let it run.....

I installed four (4) different devices last night, one after another -- each device was one that XP should (but didn't) automatically recognize on it's own, and a device that XP previously failed to install running on automatic..... (a thumb drive, mouse, two external disks --one a Portable media Player.....

each time I used the pointer DavidR provided, to help poor old Windoze find it's driver..... and suddenly I could connect my USB peripherals again.... '