Sometime last year my mum's vista machine stoped recognising any new USB flash drives that had not been used in it before. it picks up that a new flash drive has been installed but then says that it is unknown and always automatically (though unsuccessfuly) searches for drivers. Every so often it will come up with a recomended windows update but when i try to install it, it tells me that the update does not apply to my system. Just so you know, it did not get the full service pack 1 installed because of our crappy 1GB monthly download limit which we will always blow anyway so i don't want it to amount to any more cost. I cannot remember if there were any big changes done to the machine before that so dont bother asking. and i am not allowed to format and reinstall (mum said!) At first this problem seemed a bit weird, but now it is just getting very anoying. The machine has 32bit vista home, pentium D 2.8ghz, 2gb ddr2 600, MSI 945GZM3 motherboard. any advice would be appreciated, thanks
Are the flashdrives going directly into the computer or via a USB hub or something like that? Often the problem can lie with a broken hub rather than the flashdrive itself.
Do you have the make and model of the flash drive you are using? Burnt out hubs are commen these days but he said that his pc picks it up but doesnt work if he tries to use it.
MSI 945GZM3 series MS-7267 (V2.X) micro ATX mainboard. It's Intel 945GZ Express chipset based (northbridge: Intel 945GZ, southbridge: Intel ICH7) hope thats what you wanted. and no, i don't use a USB hub or anything and i have tried all usb ports in the computer. Its not the flash drives either, they all show vista support and have worked fine on all machines ive tried them on, both Vista and XP. It has also been suggested to me that its because i did not let vista's updates install which is causing a problem somewhere, would you think its absolutley necessary for me to update vista to fix this problem?
Usb ports & hubs are the same thing and yes you do need to install vista updates including sp1 which is essential to have to ensure smooth operation.
I would try and get sp1+ installed on the system (everything up to date) then find the most up to date mobo drivers (chipset usb Ethernet Etc.) If that doesn't work then try and repair the vista instillation (with it fully updated) and are you getting any errors in Device manager for the USB host controllers ?
